Prisoners right to vote highlights evolution of NZ law
The Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal, the High Court, and the Human Rights Commission have emphatically expressed the view to afford prisoners the right to vote — what is the world coming to? Sarcasm aside, it seems only yesterday — 30 years to be exact — that New Zealand ditched the death penalty. As we’re winding down for Christmas, I’m indulging in a bit of legal history.
Twitter extraordinaire and lawyer Graeme Edgeler clarified that the last execution was 62 years ago, the death penalty was removed as a sentence for murder 58 years ago, and the death penalty was finally removed as a sentence for treason and various military offences in 1989.
Capital punishment was first employed in 1842, the method hanging. (As an aside, the past tense is “hanged” not “hung”.)
Wiremu Kingi Maketu was the first person executed, found guilty of murdering five people in the Bay of Islands. The deaths stemmed from a disagreement between Maketu and a man called Thomas Bull. Maketu, of chiefly rank, was mistreated by what he thought to be a plebeian. This led to Bull’s death by axe, the death of his employer Elizabeth Robertson, her two children, and another.
Maketu was about 16 and the first person, and Maori, tried and punished under British rule. He was tried in the Auckland Supreme Court by Chief Justice William Martin. Martin CJ was from Birmingham, attended Cambridge University, and with Attorney-General William Swainson and Thomas Outhwaite helped set up our judicial system.
Maketu’s legal counsel, C.B.
Brewer, was secured only an hour before appearing in court and failed to communicate with the defendant or assess the depositions. Brewer cited ignorance of the law, saying Maketu had no means or opportunity to understand the penal law of the colony. Martin CJ sided with prosecuting counsel William Swainson — that same Attorney General — who argued there should be one rule for all.
Maketu was found guilty by an allpakeha jury. He was hanged at the corner of Queen and Victoria streets in Auckland. Later Swainson — as
Attorney General — wrote to the Colonial Office over concerns that the case undermined Maori sovereignty. A James Stephen ultimately said “too bad” and the case played a part in the lead-up to the 1845 Flagstaff War.
It seems access to justice issues have plagued New Zealand since the birth of the colonial system. Ironic, as Maori were about 80,000 in number compared with 2050 non-Maori at the time. Of the 85 executions between 1842 and 1895, at least 27 were Maori.
Minnie Dean was the only woman executed. Her story has been the subject of popular culture — Marlon Williams’ The Ballad of Minnie Dean springs to mind.
Dean took in unwanted children in exchange for payment. Various deaths occurred under her care, but a coroner’s inquest blamed universally poor hygiene.
Dean boarded a train in 1895 with a baby and left with just a hatbox, which was reported to be strangely heavy. While childcare legislation was sparse, meaning Dean didn’t need to keep records, a woman testified the baby was her granddaughter. Dean was arrested for infanticide and three bodies were uncovered at her property. The causes of death involved suffocation, drowning, and a laudanum overdose.
She was tried for murder in Invercargill in 1895, represented by famous lawyer Alfred Hanlon, who argued accidental death. She was hanged at the Invercargill jail — now the home of a Noel Leeming carpark — in August 1895. The case led to the Infant Life Protection Act 1893 and the Infant Protection Act 1896.
I shall leave you with the court reporting of the time: “She walked firmly to the scaffold, and said in answer to the Sheriff — ‘I have nothing to say except that I am innocent’. There was no hitch in the arrangements, and the prisoner’s death was instantaneous.
“The condemned woman slept for three hours last night. She took no breakfast, and only a sip from a glass of spirits given her by the gaol surgeon. ‘Don’t let them keep me in agony, doctor,’ were her parting words to the surgeon.”