A MEMORABLE SCENE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2459, 25 March 1909, Page 6

A MEMORABLE SCENE.

LAST STAGE OF THE GOODE TRIAL.

DR TRUBY KING’S EVIDENCE

“AN ABSOLUTE MASTERPIECE.”

The last scene of the Goode murder trial was one of the most extraordinary ever witnessed in a court of law (says the “Evening Post-.”) The central figure was Dr Truby King, of Seacliff Mental Hospital. On his evidence the ease for the Crown rested. Dr King stepped into the witness-box with a huge portmanteau of hooks. Then he entered into a long, masterly dissertation on mental diseases. The Crown Prosecutor, in an hour and a half, asked only three, questions. . Counsel for the defence asked only two in three quarters of an hour. Through all that time the witness, more in the manner of a professor lecturing to a class of iindents than even an expert in the box, continued to pour forth what was admitted afterwards by the medical men present to be an absolute masterpiece of scientific exposition. Nothing like it had been heard before. The doctor quoted eminent authorities in England, Scotland, and Germany. When the Crown Prosecutor suavely interposed suggestions that the prisoner, though insane, had knowledge of •the quality and nature of the fatal deed, witness, with an impatient sweep of the arm, brushed the question aside: “Words,” ho cried, “are the coins of fools, but the counters of wise men.” He declared that the prisoner was not onlv legally but medically insane. He explained the change of attitude due to reading the evidence reported in the newspapers. “When I read the reports,” he said, “I think I am reading a text-boox —not a newspaper.’ It-was extraordinary. Dr King was judge, jury, and court. He was given a hearing extending over two hours practically an uninterrupted hearing—and -when he had finished his evidence the judge, was satisfied and intimated that the jury need not leave the box. It is impossible to convey the intensity of the scene. Imagine tlnj lean scholarly figure in the box two and a half, hours/ unravelling the intricacies of medical science in language of the utmost accuracy and purity, and the listening court. It. was a memorable scene. Bv Ids amazing evidence Dr King changed the aspect of the case and "brought about the acquittal cf the prisoner. Nothing else is talked about m New Plymouth now, and the last scene in the trial, with the figure and eloquence, of the last witness, will long endure in the memories of those present in court at tiro time.