新西兰英语 29 Three Murder Trials

　　During the last week, three major murder trials came to an end. The first one to end, last Wednesday, was a trial of an immigrant¹ from Zimbabwe, George Gwase, for the murder of his niece, 10-year old Charlene, in Christchurch. He was found Not Guilty which means he was acquitted². The following day, Chris Kahui was acquitted of the murder of his 3-month old twin sons, in Auckland. And on Saturday, a jury³ found Lipine Sila, Guilty of the murder of two 16-year old girls, and of injuring 8 others, when he drove his car into a crowd outside a party in Christchurch a year ago.
All these events were very sad as they involved babies, a child and two teenagers. They all took a long time to come to trial. For example, the Kahui twins died nearly 2 years ago. The cases were all heard before a judge and 12 members of a jury and all the trials lasted a long time: Chris Kahui’s trial lasted 6 weeks. But the verdict⁴ of the jury took a very different length of time. The jury in the case of Lipine Sila took nearly 3? days while the jury in the case of Chris Kahui took 10 minutes to decide.
In the Gwase case, Charlene died in January 2007, 16 months ago. Her parents had died of AIDS. She was HIV positive. Gwase’s lawyer, the lawyer for the defence, argued that she died from AIDS. The Gwase family did not try to get treatment for her HIV.
In the case of Sila, he admitted that he drove the car which killed the two girls but he said he drove in panic, afraid that others would attack him. He had just been in a fight outside the party. Did he mean to hit those people with his car? Was it anger or panic? He was hoping the jury would decide this was manslaughter, that he didn’t mean to do it, but in the end the jury decided⁵ it was murder.
The Kahui case was a very sad one. Someone abused⁶ those children very violently, many times, but the 9 adults living in the house at the time refused to talk to the police. The police arrested the father, saying he was the most likely person, but the jury thought there was not enough evidence to be sure. It is possible that many of the adults were responsible for the deaths but maybe we will never know.

1 immigrant   

adj.(从国外)移来的，移民的；n.移民，侨民

参考例句：

• Life in the USA was very hard for almost every new immigrant.美国的生活几乎对每一个新移民都很艰难。
• I'd like to obtain some information about applying for an immigrant visa.我想取一些申请移民签证的资料。

2 acquitted   

宣判…无罪( acquit的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（自己）作出某种表现

参考例句：

• The jury acquitted him of murder. 陪审团裁决他谋杀罪不成立。
• Five months ago she was acquitted on a shoplifting charge. 五个月前她被宣判未犯入店行窃罪。

3 jury   

n.陪审团，评委会；adj.临时用的；vt.挑选

参考例句：

• These twelve men are believed to compose the jury.据信，陪审团是由这12人组成的。
• The members of the jury were discharged from their duties.陪审员们被解除了职务。

4 verdict   

n.裁决，结论，定论，判断

参考例句：

• The verdict of the jury was given in his favour.陪审团作出了对他有利的结论。
• Not satisfied with the verdict,they decided to make an appeal.他们不服判决，决定申诉。

5 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

6 abused   

v.妄用( abuse的过去式和过去分词 )；虐待；辱骂

参考例句：

• All the children had been physically and emotionally abused. 所有这些儿童的身心都受到了摧残。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This rule was brought into being because the old law was abused. 由于旧的法律遭到滥用，这条规则便应运而生。 来自《简明英汉词典》