MURDER VERDICT UPHELD.

Taranaki Daily News, 12 October 1917, Page 7

MURDER VERDICT UPHELD.

NO BODY FOUND. TOT CONDEMNED MAX TO DIE. . Of the highest importance in criminal law is the decision arrived at by a Court for Crown Cases Reserved, consisting of 'the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland, Mr. Justice 'Madden, Mr. Justice Kenny, .Mr. .'Justice Dodd. Mr. Justice Pim, and Mr. | Justice Gordon constituted iiy Dublin to j'hear an appeal against a conviction for murder. The matter came up on a case I stated by Mr. Justice Gibson at LondonI derry Assizes. Patrick M'Nieholl, farm- : er, had been found guilty of the murder I of his illegitimate daughter, Elizabeth : M'Nieholl, on April 27 last. The Court ' was asked to say whether there was .evidence 011 which prisoner could be con- ; victed: whether the ease eould have been ' properly withdrawn from the jury, and I whether the conviction should be quashed. A girl named Tillie Burke, who had 1 -been employed by M'Nieholl, gave birth ! to a child in November, 1916, of which I prisoner was the father. In April the ; »irl "was living with her sister in the : country, when M'Nieholl called at the , house at night and took the child away, ' saying that he was placing it with a nurse. When the girl saw hini a few days later he said that he had smothered the child, and had placed the body in his' mother's grave. On another occasion he told her that he had sent the child to an ! address in Dublin, but the address that ; he gave turned out to be a branch of 'the Belfast Bank. .M'Nieholl was avrestI, ed and denied the charge, but from the ' time when he took the child up to the •! 'present it had not been found, and the ! case for the Crown was that he raur- | dered the child and disposed of the body. . At the trial no evider.ee was called or ' the defence, but Jl'Nicholl's counsel submitted that accused could not bo con- ! victed of murder when the body had not I been found, and that the child might bo ;> alive and well for all that anybody knew. I The jury convicted prisoner, and he was sentenced to death, but the

| EXECUTION OP THE SENTENCE was stayed, pending the decision of the Court on the questions submitted to it. | The Judges sitting specially to give judgement decided una.niinou.-ily to afiirm the 1 verdict and sentence. In the course of the decision several eases were quoted in which there were convictions for murder . on the high seas, though the body had ' been thrown into the sea and not recovered. Tile condemned man seemed dazed with the result, and was at length led away Tjy the warders. It has been a working rule of criminal law as old as the time of Matthew Hale, that a Court ought not to, cqnviet a person of murder unless at least the Body of the alleged victim has been found. The rule, : however, is no more than a cautionary ! one, and has not the force of a statutory j provision. The point has not been raised in recent years more than once, and i that was in the notorious Crippen case. , In that case, however, some identifiable remains of what was alleged to be the body of Mrs. Cora Crippeu were dis- | covered, and upon that evidence Crippeu ; was hanged. In the case of the Essex Moat Farm murder Samuel Herbert Dougal, who shot his victim, Miss Cumilte • Ceeile Holland, buried her under a moat, and was hanged at Chelmsford Gaol on I .July 23, 1003, was for a long time confident that he could never be convicted | because of the body of Miss Holland had ■ not been recovered. He was first arrested on a charge of forgery, and after the, Essex Police, with the aid of Scotland Yard, had dug up the moat, the body was recovered and, as stated, he was duly hanged.