A LIFE FOR A LIFE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5281, 30 May 1928, Page 2

A LIFE FOR A LIFE.

PETITIONS FOR BEPRIEVEt DANGER AGAINST PUBLIC LIFE. “There is a deep and honourable reluctance to exact a life for a life. It permeates the Courts. In these days, there are no ‘ hanging Judges.’ If extenuating circumstances exist the judges are the first to note them end to temper justice with mercy.”— Daily Telegraph.

“ It is strange that ip outbursts df mass emotion on behalf of a condemned murderer there is no pity for the murdered man,” writes Mr James Douglas in the Sunday Express. “ He is forgotten in the surge of senr timent and sensibility. Another, thing is also forgotten—the purity and majesty of public justice. The sanctity and security of my life and yours depend upon the la,w. What is tlie use oif our judicial system if it can be corrupted by popular, hysteria ? It is not right to toirture the public consciences by these mass petitions against the laws whiejh safeguard our life. Nor is. it right to harrow and hara.ss; our juries and our Judges and our Home Secretaries by these herd revolts against their careful and conscientious interpretation of the law. The only result will be a collapse of our judicial machinery similar to that which makes justice in the United State tardy, hesitant, inconsistent, and uncertain.”