SUPREME COURT SENTENCES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 13, 9 February 1909, Page 2

SUPREME COURT SENTENCES

APPARENT JXC 0 X SIS TEX(J Y. ' A JiUJXJE'S COMMENTS. By Telegraph.—Presa Association. Wellington, Last Night. The New Zealand Times this morning commented upon tho apparent inconsistency of a sentence of live years' imprisonment parsed 111 hi n a prisoner found guilty of <jomm»u theft hi.sl week, Ihe jury having discarded the graver allocation of violence. Tllis, it was pointed out, appeared exclusively severe when compared with sentence!- passer! i by the same Judge at previous sessions. I At the Supreme Court to day, dealing with the ca.se uf a man who had pleaded guilty to a chargrt of breaking, entering and thcfL Air. Justice Cooper had some comment to make on the circumstances thai det'inline a judgo in sentencing a primmer. As ca-scs depended oil circumstances. His Honor >aid a judge had to exorcise a wide discretion I in passing sentence on prisoners. There were rases where persons had been convicted of certain oll'ence,«. and where tlu» circumstance- of the cum* and the character and past record of the persons showed the necessity for the safety of <tho public that such persons should be cU'ectually impeded ami prevented

in their career of crime. There were other case.-; in which the crime alleged was the same, and the same circumstances existed, but win re there was a difference in the point of actual criminality, a judge dealt with the matter with entirely different views. "I make these remarks." said his Honor, ''because it is impossible for personsr not on the judgment seat to appreciate properly the reasons that move n judge to be lenient in one case and in another case to be severe." His Ilonoi

then referred to a case last week in which he said th« circumstances were much the same as in tho present case, and in which he had imposed a sentence of five years' imprisonment on a hardened criminal; "and yet in this cafte," said his Honor, "tho circumstances are such as justify me, on the full reconvmeiuktiou of the probation officer, in admitting this man to probation. Legally perhaps the cases arc the same, but not so otherwise. The prisoner under the influence of liquor went in open daylight ill the middle of the afternoon into a shop in full view of tho police station. He has pleaded guilty to the charge. Ills previous character has beeif uniformly good. Everything goes to show Tie lHnrt)cen au honoat, hardworking man. It is reasonable to ex- I peel that reform will follow without ' punishment. His brother has offered to take him to work on a farm in Tararovki. This is one of those cases in which a person not knowing the facts of the case would say that the .Judge has exercised uudjtie leniency, that there was inconsistency, but the course adopted in this case and the course adopted in another case in which the offence might seen; loss. The previous character of tfie peYsons and the circumstances of the case make aIL the difference." His Honor then admitted the prisoner to two years' probation, on condition that ho should go up to his brother a farm in Taranaki, and pay off the costs of the prosecution in quarterly instalments.