SUPREME COURTS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 2947, 4 June 1891, Page 2

SUPREME COURTS.

(DY TELKGKAI'JI—- I'KESS ASSOCIATION'.) Wellington, Last Night. Mil Ciiai'.man' this morning applied for a special jury in the dummyism case. The Judge asked what precedent there was ;md Mr Chapman mentioned the cases of Allen accused of stealing amalgam on the West Coast last year, and of Cooper, an asylum warder charged with embezzlement. The Chi ;f Justice said there were special circumstances in both those cases. Mr Gully objected, saying it looked as though the accused was anxious to have the benefit of a jury drawn exclusively from the class to which he belonged. After considerable argument Justice t'rendegrast said he would give his decision at 3 p.m. The only othor case on the list was that of Arthur Ellison, alias Dunn. Tho prisoner is already serving six months for obtaining money by telegraphing under a false name, and he was now accused with forging a receipt which enabled him to get tho money. He put in a special plea to the effect that the offences were one and the same. The jury was directed to consider whether the plea was cood, but they misunderstood the direction and returned with a verdict of not guilty. They were sent back, but in tho interval the Chief Justice decided, on consideration, that thero was no necessity to leave it to the jury. The foreman, on being recalled, said the feeling of the jury was that the otfence was practically tho same, and the prisoner ought nob to bo punished twice over for if. Tho Crown Prosecutor, though dissenting from this view, recoguised the unlikelihood of gaining a verdict, and offered no evidence. The prisoner was, therefore, discharged.

The Chief Justice gave his decision this afternoon upon the application for a special jury in tho caso against Ooleinan Phillips; for durnmyism. Ho said that in looking into what authorities there were, he had concluded that this was a caso in which a special jury might properly be granted on defendant's application. It was a kind of State prosecution, and was of an unusual character, and notwithstanding the opposition of the Crown Prosecutor, a special jury could be allowed. It not be understood that he was laying down any general rule. The trial was provisionally fixed for tho 17th inst

(11Y TKLKfiRAPH—OWN OnUIWPONIIENT), Auckland, Last Xight,

Pi. I*. O'Halloran, lately postmaster at Whangarei, was this morning sentenced to three years' imprisonment on each of live charges of embezzlement, to which he had ploaded guilty on Tuesday last, the sentences to run concurrently. Mr Tole addressed tho Court on behalf of his client, applying for the exercise of the First Offender's Probation Act, but Mr .lustico Connolly said he should havo given a longer sentence as a warning to other persons in a position of trust but that tho prisoner's prospccts had already been ruined.