A CORRECTION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5008, 12 April 1877, Page 2

A CORRECTION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEW ZEALAND TIMES. Sir, —In your otherwise full and accurate report of the libel case, HiUsden v. Powell there is a slight error. In reference to the questioning of prisoners by police constables, your reporter makes Detective Farrell say; “ I take my law from Judge Ward.” This is incorrect. What the officer said was: “I take my law from Lord Chief Justice Denman.” That eminent Judge laid down the law on the point thus: “ That although a constable is not, under any pretence whatever, to elicit any statement from a prisoner, the constable nevertheless is carefully to avoid cautioning a piisoner against criminating himself by making any voluntary statement, and he is attentively to notice every expression of a prisoner which may assist the ends of justice, that he may be prepared to repeat it when requited.” Mr. Justice Mellor, at a recent assizes at Lancaster, in a case where a policemaii had asked a prisoner in his custody to give an account of a watch which it was alleged he had stolen, said; “ Policemen have no business to question prisoners when they apprehend them, because they are in the custody of the law, and the law does not allow constables to make voluntary examinations which neither you nor I would be at liberty to make in a court of justice." At the time Farrell questioned Powell the latter was not a prisoner. Into the merits of the case I do not propose to enter, but merely wish to point out that Farrell quoted a much higher authority than Judge Ward on the point in question.—l am, &c., Amicus Cdki.e, Wellington, April 10. [We have received several letters, we may say, commenting on Detective Farrell’s evidence, but refrain from publishing such comment whilst the case in which the evidence wits given is sub judicc. The same reason prevents comment on our part.— Ed. N.Z. Times.]