COURT OF APPEAL.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3016, 27 November 1882, Page 3

COURT OF APPEAL.

THE ADAMS-LONGHUEST CONSPIRACY CASE. [By Telegraph J Wellington, Nov. 27. At the Appeal Court to-day,judgment was given in the Adams conspiracy case. Judge Johnston said the case was one of great importance and came before the Court under embarrassing circumstances. As the -jury found the defendants guilty their Honors were bound to assume, for the purposes of -- this case, that the charge against Longhurst was a false one, and, moreover that the circumstances proved were sufficient to prove the charge of conspiracy, if the girl had arrived at the legal age of discretion. The spec'fie question reserved for the Court of Appeal to determine, was whether the learned Judge ought not to have directed the acquittal of both defendants on the ground that the child was, in law, incapable of conspiring as alleged in the first count of the indictment. He held that it was repulsive to common sense to believe that the child conspired, confederated, and combined with her father to commit crime ; an I he was, therefore, of opinion on the whole, that there was no evidence incorporated in the case reserved which satisfied the requirements of the law regarding the rebuttal of the prima facie presumption of innocence, which applied to children between the ages of 7 and 14. He thought the learned Judge ought to have told the jury that there was no such evidence before them as would justify them, according to law, in finding that the prima facie . presumption of innocence must be rebutted. Accordingly the conviction ought to he quashed. Judges Gillies and Williams were also of opinion that the child was incapable of conspiring, and that the learned judge should have directed an acquittal of both prisoners. The conviction was therefore quashed. This brought the Crown case reserved to a conclusion.