POLITICAL NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 September 1917, Page 6

POLITICAL NOTES.

| •' . PREJUDICING JURIES. Hon. Mr. Samuel is asking the leader of the Council, (1) Whether his attention lias been called to a statement .published in -4<- lC ' c ' an d newspapers, headed "Jury Again Disagrees," to the effect that His Honor the Chief Justice, on the second trial if a woman accused of a crime, "summed up against the accused," and, on tho Crown Prosecutor applying for a new trial, said "he would take it upon himself to order the trial to be taken at the next criminal sittings at Hamilton (about eighty-six: miles from Auckland, where the accused and her counsel and witnesses reside), so that "there would be no delay. There had been two trials in Aucklandj and it was apparently useless Laving a third. He was not going to have the fair name of the city smirched"? (2) Whether the Government will consider what steps can be taken to prevent publication from prejudicing any jury before whom the trial takes place (at Hamilton, or elsewhere), and from inducing them to assume, either that the accused woman is guilty until proved innocent (instead of innocent until proved guilty), or that she is being subjected to persecution? SUPREME COURT RETURNS. The Hon. Mr. Samuel is to move, That there be laid on the table a return in relation to persons committed for trial or for sentence in the Supreme Court during the years ended June 30, 1914, and June 30, 1917, respectively; the return to show —(1) The number of persons" committed for sentence after a plea of guilty; (2) the number of persons committed for trial; (3) the number of persons convicted by a jury; (4) the number of persons acquitted by a jury, and (5) the number of persons in respect of whose innocence or guilt a jury has failed to agree; stating in each case any retrials that have taken place, and the result of each retrial, and tho place at which and the Judge before whom it was held.