After Twenty Years

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 412, 21 July 1928, Page 9

After Twenty Years

CONVICTION SET ASIDE

Slater and Glasgow Murder

(United P.A.—By Telegraph — Copyright) (Australian and N.Z. Press Association.) (United Service)

Reed. 9.5 a.m. LONDON, Friday. THE High Court at Edinburgh, in which five Judges were associated, unanimously decided to set aside the conviction of Oscar Slater.

The Lord Justice-General said the Court was unable to hold that the jury’s verdict was unreasonable. He did not think the new evidence had any materiality. It could not be assumed without evidence that responsible officers of the (srown concealed anything material from the defence.. The question of the abandoned character of the appellant’s mode of life, however, raised a difficult problem.

The cross-examination of witnesses for the defence had shown that the appellant was living in a place where he pretended to practice dentistry, with two women, one of whom was a prostitute.

The prosecutor, speaking to the jury, explained the brutality of the assault upon Gilchrist by pointing out the depravity of the appellant, who was living partly upon the proceeds of prostitution. As a vital point, proof of identity in this case presented an unusual difficulty. The jury might easily be influenced in one direction or the other. Hence, the Court was of the opinion that the clearest and most un-

ambiguous instructions by the presiding Judge were imperatively demanded to prevent the jury from misunderstanding the opening passages of the speech for the prosecution. The Judges’ charge did not remove the erroneous impression. On the contrary, it was calculated to confirm it.

The jury was told that a presumption of innocence was of less effect in the case of the appellant, in the light of his ambiguous character than if his character were not open to suspicion.

The presumption of innocence applies to everyone charged with crime. It is fundamental to the whole system of criminal prosecution. The Court therefore considers that the Judge’s charge amounted to a misdirection in law and that the conviction should be set aside.

Oscar Slater was released from Peterhead Prison at the end of last year, having served ISJ years after his conviction for the murder of Miss Marion Gilchrist in Glasgow in 1908. He was convicted in 1909 on a majority verdict of nine to six. and the death sentence was commuted to life Imprisonment.