JURY’S RESPONSIBILITY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 982, 27 May 1930, Page 1

JURY’S RESPONSIBILITY

Mr, Address Over

WIFE-MURDER TRIAL NEARS END

Crown Prosecutor’s Final Word

AFTER an earnest plea lasting nearly eight hours, Mr, E. H. Northcroft, counsel for the defence of Arthur Thomas Munn, on trial on a charge of wife-murder, concluded his address to the jury in the Supreme Court this morning. He impressed on the jury that the responsibility was theirs, collectively and individually, in deciding whether the accused man was guilty of murder, and, further, warned the jury of the necessity of absolute conviction of guilt. The Crown Prosecutor, Mr. V. R. Meredith, opened his address, and his Honour, Mir. Justice Herdman, is expected to s begin his summing-up this afternoon.

Mr. V. It. Meredith, Crown Prosetutor. with him Mr. McCarthy, conducted the prosecution, and Mr. E. H. Northcroft. with him Mr. Munro, represented the accused. Continuing hi 3 address this mornxZg, Mr. Northcroft said the Crown had’ presented nothing that was no*, consistent with the actions of an innocent man. He went on to deal with the “mental attitude of the police aud Dr. Dudding,” stating that by starting off with a given set of circumstances, and with the conviction that a certain person had committed the crime, it was impossible to avoid imputing suspicions to that person’s iuuocent acts. It might be the duty of the police to regard this conduct with suspicion and he did not challenge the propriety of their actions. "FIRST-CLASS MYSTERY’’ The fluid In the cup represented a Erst-class mystery, Mr. Northcroft said, in mentioning that Dr. Dudding held the contents were bitter, though he did not give the character of the bitterness. The doctor was not satisfied by the tests he made, and he got a further sample which he sent to the analyst. This expert found that there was no strychnine present, and asserted that it was merely tap water, which, counsel asserted, he should not have done. The doctor had said he noticed a brownish appearance on the fluid. There was not a scrap of evidence that the contents of the cup had been changed, and yet it was presented by the Crown as cogent testimony that Munn, having poisoned his wife, changed the contents. On finding Dr, Dudding in the house after his wife's death, MOnn had not acted as a clever and over-shrewd criminal, said counsel. He would have gone a good deal further than merely changing the contents of the cup; he would certainly have stayed in the house to ascertain if the doctor discovered anything to injure him. "If the Crown had done its work properly, we would know if the fluid in the cup had been changed,’’ said Mr. Northcroft. The doctor, he said, should have retained some of the original sample he took or tested it by tasting the contents before taking the second sample. "POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES” Discussing possible alternative methods by which the poison might have been taken, Mr. Northcroft said he was not really concerned with this branch of the case, as it was not the function of the defence to prove Munn did not poison his wife, but there was always the desire to clear up any entanglement of suspicion. There was always the possibility of suicide, said Mr. Northcroft. At the opening of the case he was not prepared to offer the suicide theory as being tenable, because there was evidence of a dose and smaller doses following until the fatal one.

Counsel said that -the jury must have been impressed with the evidence of Mrs. Munn’s reticence to the doctor and her anxiousness to keep relatives and friends away, as indicated by a letter to her mother. If Mrs. Munn had been taking poison for a certain purpose counsel suggested it would have been very embarrassing for her if her relatives came over and took charge of her during her Illness.

The suggestion that death was caused in this way was heightened by the fact that there had been successive doses, which was the action of a woman who was taking poison for a certain purpose, said counsel. Mr. Northcroft challenged the inference drawn by the Crown as to the change in the condition of Mrs. Munn between Wednesday and Friday. Counsel qustioned whether the women who had seen Mrs. Munn, if they were not overstating the condition of the sick woman, in saying she looked to be dying, would have allowed days to elapse without going to see her. "FREQUENT DOSINGS”

"The Crown builds its case on the assertions of the doctors, who say there were frequent dosings, but 1 ask you to weigh up the probabilities whether a man murdering his wife in this way would give her less than a lethal dose first and then even smaller quantities,” added Mr. Northcroft. The failure of the Crown to call the I children as witnesses, was criticised by Mr. Northcroft, who said they would have been able to give valuable testimony. It had been suggested that the children were available to the defence, but counsel pointed out that the children had been in charge of Mrs. Munn’s relatives and there was little chance of information being gained by the defence. He Invited the jury to conclude that the reason the children were not called was that they could not assist the Crown case. “I suggest there is no motive here at all,” said Mr. Northcroft, in discussing this aspect of the case. “It is necessary for the Crown to prove, in all circumstances, that the motive did lead to the crime,” he added. The Crown’s suggestion was that Munn’s Illicit, and indecent association with Mrs. Stuck and his obsession of intense hatred for his wife was the motive, counsel said. Munn’s association with Mrs. Stuck was indefensible, Mr. Northcroft said. The jury was bound to the conclusion that the police did not discover anything of illicit intercourse. The association was carried on under the eyes of Mrs. Stuck's people and Munn’s own daughters. At the time Mrs. Munn was supposed to have been murdered by her husband, Mrs. Stuck had gone away for an indefinite time, and that was an important point. Had the incident taken place when Mrs. Stuck was in Auckland or if Mrs. Munn had learnt of the association, there may have been something more incident to the supposed motive of murder. Counsel earnestly suggested that there would have been no Crown case had -there not been a third party. "You are asked to find Munn guilty of murder, not because there is any evidence that he committed he murder, or because there is a motive, but because he stands a self-confessed, indecent and unfaithful husbaud,” said Mr. Northcroft. EVIDENCE OF QUARRELS Referring to the evidence of quarrels between Munn and his wife, counsel maintained that these arguments had been no more serious than those which commonly took place in many households. Mr. Northcroft cautioned the jury, making special reference to the Oscar Slater case, where the sentenced man was released after 20 years in prison, that it must not merely think that Munn was, or probably was, a murderer, but it would bave to be convinced that the Crown case was proved fully. He granted that guilty persons could be convicted on circumstantial evidence, but it was essential that such evidence should be received with the utmost possible caution. It was not the jury’s concern to come down with a definite conclusion as to how* Mrs. Munn came by the poison. There was the theory of murder, the theory of suicide, and the theory of self-administration to procure abortion, and the jury’s duty was to judge the one issue of tire case and to reject the other theories. “Justice never requires the sacrifice of a victim,” counsel reminded the jury, in quoting from authorities on the ’conduct of juries. Guilt must j be incontrovertibly established,” he: said. However strong the suspicion, j the jury would not be justified in ! offering a victim, merely in the belief that someone must be convicted for a crime, otherwise crime would go unpunished. FOUR LANDMARKS There were four conspicuous landmarks in the case, Mr. Northcroft said. Firstly, there was no evidence that Munn administered poison to his wife, secondly the failure of Mrs. Munn to complain that she had had (Continued on Page 10.)

The difficulty of associating suicide with poisoning, as was alleged in this case, was a real one, said Mr. Northcroft. Dr. Gunson had said Mrs. -Munn was suffering from bloodpressure, and he considered that had Dr. Dudding taken the dead woman’s pressure before the first attack he would have found it abnormally high. Strychnine certainly caused bloodpressure, but once the attack died away the pressure returned to normal in five minutes. He realised that the doctors held the symptoms were more consistent with a strychnine attack than a convulsion arising from bloodpressure. Counsel contended that if Mrs. Gill’s statement of what she saw was correct, Mrs. Munn’s condition was not entirely consistent with a strychnine convulsion. This was evident, too, from the action of Dr. Dudding, who on witnessing the convulsion, was not certain that it arose from poisoning and went homo aud consulted his books. Therefore, the strychnine and blood-pressure convulsions were very similar. FEAR OF HOSPITAL

The Crown had alleged that Munn had brought up his wife’s fear of hospital to imply suicide on her part, said Mr. Northcroft. The doctor swore he did not threaten to send Mrs. Munn to hospital and Munn testified that he did. but it was clear that Mrs. Munn had such an impression on her mind the first day of her illness, because remarked on it to Mrs. Gill. It was probable that Munn was correct and that Dr. Dudding’s recollection of the conversation was faulty. The doctor's suggestion that he had not made this threat because he was not in the habit of telling his patients falsehoods, was described by counsel as fatuous, and was an indication that the doctor was prepared to go a long way in his suspicion to contradict Munn.

Counsel impressed on the jury that the authorities showed that if there was any other possibility than murder of death having occurred, and he offered suicide as a real and possible eauee of Mrs. Munn's death, accused must be given the benefit of the doubt. The real and probable explanation the death was that Mrs. Munn took 'he potson to bring on a certain natural event, said Mr. Northcroft.