The Sun. — 1865-08-03 (London, England)

CROWN COURT. (Before Mr. Justice Blackburn.) Henry Hughes was indicted for the wilful murder of Francis Coates, at Middlesborough, on the 28th of July. Mr. Mania and Mr. Hannay conducted the prosecution ; Mr. Campbell Foster defended the prisoner. The deceased man Coates was a moulder, 23 years of age, and about midnight on the 27th of July went in company with a man named Lindsay to the King's Head publichouse in Middlesborough. The house, however, was shut up, and Coates and his companions were refused admittance. At that moment it happened that the prisoner was passing along the opposite side of the street, in company with a woman, with whom he was going in the direction of the Albert-bridge. Both the prisoner and the woman were rather tipsy, and Coates and his companion followed shouting after them. When they arrived at the arch of the Albert-bridge Coates was still following the prisoner and the woman, and was continuing to annoy them. The prisoner thereupon turned round, and going up to Coates stabbed him twice in the abdomen with a large claspknife about six inches long in the blade and with a dagger-guard. Coates fell and died in about three hours. Upon cross-examination it was elicited that the prisoner was in the company of the woman for an apparently immoral purpose, and that the deceased had formed one of a party of six or eight young men who had followed the prisoner, jeering at him. It was attempted to be shown that stones had been thrown at the prisoner, and that he was surrounded and thrown on to his knees before the fatal blows wore struck, but this the witnesses entirely denied. There was also the dying declaration of the deceased, in which he denied that he had thrown any stone at or struck the prisoner. The defence was that. the crime amounted to manslaughter, and not to murder. ilia Lordship, in Ouusruing up, pointed out to the jury  that if a man knowing what he was about caused the death of another from the use of a deadly weapon that was murder, unless there was anything in the attendant circumstances to reduce the offence to manslaughter. Where the intention to kill was shown by the use of a deadly weapon there must, in order to reduce the crime to manslaughter, be evidence of personal violence to the prisoner, or, at any rate, of a reasonable apprehension on his part that it was about to be offered. If stones had been thrown at the prisoner, or if he had been surrounded by these young men in a threatening manner, the offence might have been reduced to manslaughter; but there was no evidence of either these things having taken place, and mere jeering was not sufficient provocation, when the intention to kill was so clearly shown by the weapon used and the nature of the wounds as it was in the present case. The jury retired and, after a short deliberation, returned into court with a verdict of guilty of wilful murder. His Lordship, having assumed the black cap, observed that the irritation produced in the prisoner's mind by the thoughtless conduct of the deceased and his companions could not justify the use of a deadly weapon, and it was impossible for the jury reasonably to have found any other verdict. He hoped that this case would be taken as a lesson in this part of the country, where the use of the knife was but too common. His Lordship then proceeded to pass sentence of death in the usual form. The prisoner listened with an unmoved• countenance, and at the conclusion said, " Thank you, sir, I hope there'll he a judge and jury over such a jury as them."