Going for a Burton

Having never sat on a jury I am not sure I am qualified to write this fryday. Nevertheless, qualification has never stopped me before, so here goes. What was the jury thinking in the Burton case? Why did they take almost two days of deliberations to find this maniac guilty? Okay, Burton’s criminal history was denied them, and one can take issue with the propriety of that given that: Burton is serving a life sentence, with a minimum non-parole period of 26 years, for the murder of Lower Hutt man Karl Kuchenbecher in January 2007 while he was on parole, and he had served 14 years for the stabbing murder of Paul Anderson outside a Wellington night club. But here are the facts that were presented to the jury:
• Burton stabbed a fellow convict several times with a sharpened steel rod in a corridor outside the cells in Paremoremo.
• One of these stab wounds, to the heart, caused injuries that required emergency hospital surgery to save the convict’s life.
• Security camera footage shown to jurors during this week's trial showed Burton entering the convict’s cell. The victim was seen backing out of the cell shortly afterwards, pursued by Burton.
• Burton was seen pursuing the convict up and down the corridor three times, with an object in each hand.
• Burton’s victim was eventually pulled out of the corridor by security guards. He was escorted to the prison medical centre, where his eyes were seen to roll backwards and it was only the intervention of a guard that prevented him from falling to the floor.
Excuse me? I think that is fairly compelling evidence of Burton’s guilt. Yet, it takes almost two days to find this guy guilty? But the other question is, why should it tax me so? Good question, and well in keeping with the undoubted astuteness and intelligence of Fryday readers. Well, the answer is this; we are told that the courts are overloaded and that many cases never come to court because of it. Yet here we have a court case involving a man (Burton) already in gaol and clearly not going anywhere fast that goes two days over time because of the vagaries of a jury. I know that’s not the court’s fault and I don’t have an easy answer but common sense would surely suggest the jury system has done us a disservice here.

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