THE TE AROHA MURDER. [BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH, OWN" CORRESPONDENT.] Auckland, Last Night.

Waikato Times, Volume XVI, Issue 1370, 12 April 1881, Page 2

THE TE AROHA MURDER. [BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH, OWN" CORRESPONDENT.] Auckland, Last Night.

At the Supreme Court to-day, the charge of murder against Procoffy commenced. In opening the case the Crown Prosecutor said : The duty which devolves upon my learned friend Cooper aud myself is not to endeavour by every possible means to gain a verdict of "Guilty" against the prisoner, but to steer our course so carefully in adducing evidence and conducting the case generally, that while on the one hand our duty to the Crown requires us to see that no salient point Bhall be left unmentioned, our duty to the public demands that we shall not strain anything to prisoner's disadvantage. It will be your duty to carefully weigh evidence brought before you, for the case is a very lengthy, and entirely circumstantial one. You will attentively listen to all said on oath, gravely consider it, sift it so that if you find the man guilty you will in ] after life have no cause to regret it. If, on the other hand, you should find any i reasonable or substantial doubt in the evidence, you will interpret it in prisoner's favour, and if necessary reduce the crime to that of manslaughter : or if you can perceive a flaw in the evidence, you will acquit him altogether. You must therefore so weigh the evidence that you may be enabled to say in future life with a clear conscience that you did your duty fairly between the Crown and accused, and that justice was performed. The whole of the evidence is circumstantial, and it has been well said that circumstances cannot lie j neither can they, but wrong deductions may be drawn from these circumstances, and it will be for you to consider whether different circumstances do not so fall link by link as to form a complete chain of evidence leading in. one direction, or another. If one link should prove to be missing, you are bound to give the prisoner benefit of the doubt which it qcca^ions \ but if, on the contrary, the chain is shown to be co,mplete, you will, whatever your feelings, do your duty by returning a verdict in accordance with the evidence. The trial will necessarily be a protracted one, frqm the number of witnesses to be exarained being 3Q, and will most likely extend over two ov thr-eedays. The learned gentleman then went on ' with great minuteness to explain the evi- ' , dence which, he, bad to offer. , , The witnesses so far examined disclosednothing that ha», not already come out in previpgs enquiries, 'and been published in the 'W&Y¥&KO< J Siipq,