THE ONEGA CASE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 164, 14 December 1874, Page 3

THE ONEGA CASE.

DODD’S CONVICTION QUASHED, [D«. nedin Evening Star. ] The Court of Appeal yesterday decided that the conviction of Charles Dodd, the second mate of the barque Oneca, who at the last criminal sessions of the Supreme Court was found guilty of the manslaughter of John Green, a seaman on board that vessel, was bad in law. The case stated for the Court of Appeal by Judge Chapman was as follows : The prisoner was found guilty of manslaughter, and his Honor respited the sentence in order to take the opinion of the full Court upon the question whether the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to try the offence under the following circumstances: The offence was committed on the high sons in latitude 48deg South, and longitude, Hldeg 58 East, about 500 miles from the nearest land—Tasmania. The ship on board which the offence was committed is a United States barque, called the Oneca, sailing out of New York in the United States of America. It was in evidence that prisoner had stated that he was bom in the colony of Nova Scotia, and that he was not naturalised as a citizen of the United States. But in an affidavit which he swore to to enable his counsel to move for a postponement of the trial, he stated that he was born in the colony of Nova Scotia and was a naturalised citizen of the United States; and it was urged by his counsel that the fact of his naturalization was material,

and that he desired a postponement of the trial in order to procure from America documentary and other evidence of the fact. The judge refused to postpone the trial on the ground that, he considered the fact of his naturalisation immaterial, inasmuch as a British-born subject could not throw off his original status by subsequent naturalisation by a foreign state. The person killed was named John Green ; he was believed to be an Irishman, but there was no evidence of his nationality. The judge entertained considerable doubt whether the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to try the offence, committed as it was upon the high seas, on board of a foreign ship—even assuming that the prisoner was, at the time of committing the offence, a British subject. The question submitted to the Court was whether the conviction was right in point of law. Although our telegram is silent on the point, we venture the opinion that the decision of the Court was on the question of jurisdiction.