Under Sentence of Death.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 241, 11 April 1895, Page 2

Under Sentence of Death.

SEVERE STRrCTUKES ON THE JUDGE. (P£B PRESS ASSOCIATION) Sydney, April 10. Much attention has been drawn to the case of Dean, sentenced to death for attempting to poison his wife. Tiie chief attention has been through Judge Windeyer's direction to the jury. The latter, after eight hours deliberation, not having arrived at a verdict, the judge informed them that the issues were so clear that he thought he must have failed to make himself plain, and adding if they did not arrive at a verdict they would be locked up from Saturday night until Monday morning. The jury thereupon returned in seven minutes with a verdict of guilty with a recommendation to mercy. The Daily Telegraph, in reviewing the case, says public opinion expressed through the usual channels utterly fails to support eithsr the responsible verdict of the jury, or the remarks of the judge, who declared himself as well satisfied that Dean had committed the crime as if he had seen him with his own eyes. The paper considers the jury's verdict was literally taken out of the judge's mouth. Melboubne, April 10. The Argus has a severe article on the jury being brow-beaten into finding a verdict of guilty, and says it is very remarkable that Macauley's words describing Jeffrey's brutal conduct at the trial of Alice Lisle, exactly fit the present case and the parallel between the closing scenes of both cases may bring home to Judge Windeyer's mind that the judge is grossly transgressing his duty when he employs any kind of coercion to force a verdict.