NEW CRIMINAL CODE.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1332, 21 July 1883, Page 4

NEW CRIMINAL CODE.

As some will have it the following is i a few of the novelties contained in that bulky volume the new criminal code: —(1) The abolition of the old distinction between felony and misdemeanour, all crimes being simply termed offences ; (2) The simplification of the definitions of degrees of homicide, and of theft, fraud, &c., getting rid of “ constructive malice ”; (3) Permitting accused persons to give evidence, also husband and wife for and against one another, but such evidence not compellable ; (4) ; Establishing the right of appeal to a full Court in all criminal cases (not merely in capital cases). It also empowers the Governor in Council to order a new trial if there is reason to doubt the justice of the conviction. Among the grounds of appeal is that the “ verdict was against the weight of evidence," which, the Commissioners remark, “is a great innovation (in criminal procedure) and would be of doubtful propriety but for the proposal to make the right subject to leave being granted by the Judge who tried the case and to the discretion of the Court of Appeal as to ordering a new trial.” The Commissioners remark :—“ It seems doubtful whether the] right of demanding new trial ought not to be grantable to the prosecutor as well, which is not proposed in the English draft code.”