Six judges were involved in Dhakiyarr’s case. Judge TA Wells presided over the case in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory. Five justices heard Dhakiyarr’s appeal in the High Court of Australia.
Frank Gavan Duffy was the Chief Justice and joined with Owen Dixon, Herbert Vere Evatt and Edward McTiernan in writing one of the two court judgments on Tuckiar v. Rex. Owen Dixon later served as the Australian Minister to Washington (1942–44) and the Chief Justice of the High Court (1952–64). Evatt later served as Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs in the Labor governments of John Curtin and Ben Chifley, President of the United Nations General Assembly (1948–49) and Leader of the Opposition (1951–60). McTiernan was a justice on the High Court from 1930 to 1976. Hayden Starke was the fifth justice hearing Dhakiyarr’s case and wrote his own judgment. Starke was a High Court justice for 30 years (1920–50).
Thomas Alexander Wells presided over the Darwin trial of Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda in August 1934. He had been appointed to the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory a year earlier.
  | Photograph of Judge Wells (left) from the Melbourne Herald, 6 August 1934. NAA: A1, 1936/4022 Part 2, p. 328 | |
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Although trained in Sydney, like many Darwinites he resented interference from the federal government in Canberra. He objected to the autonomy of the judiciary being overruled by the parliament or the executive government.
During the lead-up to Dhakiyarr’s trial, the conflict between Wells and the public servants in the Department of the Interior became so acute that Interior Secretary HC Brown sent a coded instruction to Acting Administrator JA Carrodus, to report on Wells’ courtroom comments: ‘Could you arrange this without Judge’s knowledge’. Accordingly, and unknown to Wells, Carrodus took notes at the trial. Today these are the only official record of what happened at the trial. (See the Carrodus notes in The case against Dhakiyarr.)
 | Confidential telegram from the Department of the Interior to JA Carrodus, Acting Administrator of the Northern Territory, 3 August 1934. NAA: A1, 1936/4022 Part 1, p. 45 | |
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After Wells passed the death sentence on Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda the London Daily Herald, 8 August 1934, referred to him as Australia’s ‘Judge Jeffreys’, a notorious ‘hanging judge’ in 17th century England.
 | The London Daily Herald compared Judge Wells to Judge Jeffreys, 8 August 1934. NAA: A1, 1936/4022 Part 2, p. 41 | |
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Stung by what he took to be government criticism of his remarks at the conclusion of Dhakiyarr’s trial, he demanded a correction of the ‘misrepresentation’ from Prime Minister Joseph Lyons.
 | Cablegram from Judge Wells to Prime Minister Lyons, 14 August 1934. NAA: A432, 1934/1477, p. 71 | |
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Criticism of Judge Wells did not end with Dhakiyarr’s trial. The records in the National Archives contain several submissions seeking to remove Wells or prevent him from presiding over Aboriginal trials. There is no evidence of the government’s response, but he served on the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory until 1952.
A recent assessment of Wells described him as ‘last in a long line of strong-minded but eccentric Northern Territory Supreme Court justices’ (Egan p. 198f).