RELEASE FROM PRISON.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 April 1919, Page 5

RELEASE FROM PRISON.

A REQUEST DECLINED, By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. A deputation of women made an appeal to the Minister of Justice to-day for the release from prison of Alice Parkinson, found guilty at Nstpier of the manslajghter of Albert West) »t.a sentenced to imprisonment for life. The Minister, replying, said it was al &xiom in an oidered society that offeimers against its laws must pay the .penalty for their disobedience. Were ni-iie paid there would soon be no law. Alice Parkinson had been tried in a court of law, before a judge of wide experience, and it seemed to the Minister that for a Minister of Justice in a case like the present to review a sentence, if he were able, it would be wrong and unjustifiable. The Minister deplored the fact that there was no law on our Statute Book granting to a convicted person the right of appeal on facts. In his Crime Amendment Bill of last year, which passed the House of Bepresentatives without division, the people's representatives affirmed the principle that a convicted person had <.he right of appeal to the Court of Appeal,' which could quash or reduce a oentence imposed. The Bill was lost iff. the Council. Had it been the law of the land Alice Parkinson could have had l her sentence reviewed by a bench of in the courts of law. That, in (the Minister s opinion, was where the .review should take place —not in the office of the Mmister of Justice. 1