SUPREME COURT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 4929, 9 January 1877, Page 3

SUPREME COURT.

CRIMINAL SITTINGS. Monday, January/ 8. (Before his Honor the Chief Justice.) , His Honor took his seat at ,19 o'clock to deliver ■'■-.>.•-'.■••'■ ■ ."■ SENTENCE* . , ':.>.;■-•' . Coleman -was first brought up,>n& man- ' sVer to the nsnal question saidr I am very j sorry.for.what has happened. It has been | brought on simply through my having a bad j ■wife and bad relations. They have cruelly | iltused me for years. I have worked hard for her and for them, but it was to no purpose. 1 His Honor : Prisoner at the bar, the very excellent character that has been given yon by your neighbors and persons not interested at all in the case influences me in passing upon you a very much lighter sentence than I it would otherwise have been my duty to pass, j That your wife's life was not absolutely taken, was of course no fault of. yours. . You used a deadly weapon, and aimed at a vital part. There isy therefore, no distinction between the offence you have committed and that of murder in some respects. The law allows a sentence of penal servitude for life. for the commission of this offence, but the prisoner was not to know anything about that; and I consider the fact of your having a grievance no mitigation of the offence; on the contrary, the fact of a person committing such an oflencey under provocation not given at the time, is, instead of being a mitigation, an aggravation of the "offence. It is the very kind 1 " of cause for the; commission of an offence' which it is necessary in the interests of —; society to discountenance and suppress : by. "severity ,in a Court of Justice. Society has less to fear from causeless offences than from offences committed from •vengeance. It is for this reason that it is my duty to pass a severe sentence, though, in consequence of the high character which you have received as a good husband and a good father, it is riot such a sentence as would otherwise hive.,b4efl.}Pass e '4«-.The-.sentence of the law .: is that you be ; servitude ,for ten years. ' • .Owen Cummings, who had been convicted of an attempt to commit an unnatural offence, Baid : I have only been in this country for four monthß. I have, been prosecuted by this wicked woman. I am innocent of the crime. His' 1 Honor : -The sentence of the Court is thaf'yoti be kept in penal servitude for five years. But for your youth the sentence would have been much more severe. . i RODOLPH liATJRENT AGAIN. Mr. Barton said,-before the adjournment of the criminal sittings of the Court,, that it was not known when the whipping was to be. given in. the case of Rodolph Laurent. His Honor : I do not consider it part of my duty to fix the time, Mr.. Barton... Mr.. Barton : I was not mentioning the subject for that purpose your Honor. My reason was that the principal witness for the prosecution, or the next principal witness, namely, the mother of the girl, is likely to be prosecuted for perjury by the parents of the prisoner, there being a considerable mass of evidence to show that she has. not spoken the truth.. If the result of such prosecution should show that her evidence was manifestly fake, the consequence might be that the Crown would remit a portion of the punishment, or possibly all of it. Therefore, I am instructed to ask that the administration of the flogging should >be postponed till after the trial of that witness on a prosecution for perjury. ' His Honor : I do not think I have anything to do with it. Without at all expressing or indicating an opinion as to what should be done,'l may mention what was done in a case ■ of a similar nature. Persons who in that case entertained views similar to those now entertained by the friends of the prisoner applied to the Executive Government, and whether the views were entertained or not, I believe that, either by their instructions or those of the Visiting Justices, the whipping was not administered until after another sitting of the Supreme Court. The whipping need not be adrmnistered till after the expiration of six months, but it need not be. administered till a later period. However, it J 3 a matter -with which I have nothing to do. lam simply the mouthpiece of the statute book. The Court was then adjourned, for the trial of civil cases, till Tuesday, the 16th Just.