"IMPRISONMENT FOR THE TERM OF NATURAL LIFE."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8464, 14 June 1907, Page 5

"IMPRISONMENT FOR THE TERM OF NATURAL LIFE."

«. . There lias lately been considerable interest evinced as to what distinction, if any, exists between "imprisonment for life" and "imprisonment for the term of natural life." Three correspondents have written to the Wellington Post on the point, and enquiries made with the intention ojf answering tneir queries have elicited the fact that in the Criminal Code of this country there is no specific sentence "for the term of his natural life." The passing of a life sentence means (in strict interpretation) that the prisoner will be such, until death, though a practice seems to obtain under which such prisoners gain liberty at the end of twenty years or earlier if they have been of uniformly good conduct. On the point as to life sentences the gaol regulations (No. 116) say: —"No rule tor the remission of life sentences will be laid down. Such sentences are passed on persons guilty of the gravest offences, and the Governor will only extend the Royal prerogative of mercy to such persons under exceptional circumstances." There has been at least one occasion upon which a New Zealand Judge (Ivlr Justice Edwards) had sentenced a prisoner (one Douglas) to "imprisonment for the term of natural life," and there are other instances of New Zealand prisoners being sentenced to "imprisonment for life." Whether his Honor in passing the sentence on Douglas had any intention of distinguishing between the fifteen to twenty years' period and a sentence until actual death, it will be interesting to know.

Possibly the use by a judge of the words "natural life," is meant to intimate to the Executive the judge's opinion that clemency to the prisoner would be misplaced, and that he should be kept in prison until death.