Hung out to dry? Questioning the legality of Southland baby-farmer Minnie Dean's 1895 murder trial and execution

<p>In 1895 Minnie Dean became the only New Zealand woman to receive the death penalty. In the Invercargill Supreme Court she was found guilty of the murder of Dorothy Edith Carter, a child Minnie had recently adopted, who was found buried in her garden alongside two other infants. Branded a vindictive baby-farmer, Minnie Dean was widely condemned by the New Zealand press and public during the four months between her arrest and execution. This paper will assess whether, amongst the mania, Minnie was afforded a fair criminal trial and sentencing. It will be argued that while Minnie’s fate was largely predetermined from the moment of her arrest, against 1895 legal standards, correct criminal procedure was generally followed. Despite this, when comparing her trial and sentencing with contemporaneous murder trials, it is evident that Minnie Dean received no procedural clemency.</p>

Hung out to dry? Questioning the legality of Southland baby-farmer Minnie Dean's 1895 murder trial and execution

<p>In 1895 Minnie Dean became the only New Zealand woman to receive the death penalty. In the Invercargill Supreme Court she was found guilty of the murder of Dorothy Edith Carter, a child Minnie had recently adopted, who was found buried in her garden alongside two other infants. Branded a vindictive baby-farmer, Minnie Dean was widely condemned by the New Zealand press and public during the four months between her arrest and execution. This paper will assess whether, amongst the mania, Minnie was afforded a fair criminal trial and sentencing. It will be argued that while Minnie’s fate was largely predetermined from the moment of her arrest, against 1895 legal standards, correct criminal procedure was generally followed. Despite this, when comparing her trial and sentencing with contemporaneous murder trials, it is evident that Minnie Dean received no procedural clemency.</p>

Foul-Weather Friends

This chapter highlights the civil–military commission of Lublin voivodeship that adjudicated a contract dispute between the town magistracy and the Jewish community of Lublin over the quartering of soldiers for the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth's rapidly growing army. It analyzes the quarrels between Jews and their Christian neighbours that punctuated small-town life in pre-modern eastern Europe. It also points out how disputes serve as a reminder that the confrontations between Jews and Christians did not arise from ethno-religious hostility. The chapter mentions historians of Poland–Lithuania that often viewed the dynamics of Jewish–Christian interaction through dramatic details, such as the escalation of ritual murder trials in the eighteenth century. It describes contacts between urban Christians and Jews that revolved around concrete and prosaic concerns that were connected with the ambiguous powers and duties of both groups.

The Revival and the Third Movie

This chapter discusses the revival of Chicago as well as its movie adaptation. At the same time, the chapter refers to the infamous O. J. Simpson trial in describing Watkins’ own feeling that the press was shaping public reaction to murder trials to exculpate the guilty. Considering the show-biz aspect of the whole Simpson chronicle, the lesson everyone took from this case was that high-profit justice is show business by other means: the very message of Chicago. With the nation more or less transfixed by this staged miscarriage of due process, the musical’s lesson was at last learned. Finally, the chapter examines further themes and lessons from the film, as well as the national art of the musical as a whole.