AN EXPENSIVE CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10086, 6 September 1910, Page 4

AN EXPENSIVE CASE.

The criminal case heard in the Supreme Court-at Masterton yesterday, in which a man was tried on' ' a charge of indecency, put- the country to quite a considerable expense. In the first place it entailed the summoning and attendance of a Grand Jury, the presence at Court of about three-score common jurors, the bringing of witnesses from distances, and the appearance of a Crown Prosecutor, to say nothing of the other expenses and inconveniences incidental to the case. The offence was,, if provjed to the satis*. faction of the jury,,, not of a very serious character, and it : seems' almost incredible that a-Bench, of Justices at Carterton., should:, have thought it necessary to send the. case for trial.. If the prisoner could elect to be tried by jury instead of being dealt with summarily, and deliberately selected this alternative, there is something very deficient in the Criminal Code, or the Crimes Act. There is no excuse for the expensive machinery of the Supreme Court being put into motion to deal with a case which might very properly have been dealt with by a Bench of Justices.