A COURT MISTAKE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 40, 16 August 1937, Page 13

A COURT MISTAKE

UNINTENTIONAL SENTENCE

While the Court record, ana that of the gaol, showed that Mervyn Williams, of Prahran, was sentenced by Judge Macindoe, in the Court of General Sessions, to imprisonment for three years and a half, to be followed by detention in a reformatory, it was revealed in the Court of Criminal Appeal that the term of imprisonment in the form stated should never have been ordered, and that the only actual punishment it was intended to impose was detention in a reformatory at the expiration of the sentence the prisoner was then undergoing, says the Melbourne "Age." It.transpired that the shorthand notes had omitted that the sentences were concurrent with each other, and had merely said that the sentences were concurrent with the one the prisoner was then serving. Williams had been sentenced by Judge ' Macindoe on charges of larceny, shop-breaking, and factory breaking, and the records showed that the total term of imprisonment imposed was three years and a half, to be followed by detention in a reformatory. On the ground that ttfe sentences were severe, Williams appealed ' to the Court of Criminal Appeal, con- I sisting of the Chief Justice (Sir Frederick Mann), Mr. Justice Macfarlan, and Mr. Justice Duffy.

The report of the trial Judge to the Court stated that in passing sentence he ordered that the sentences passed should be concurrent with each other and. with .the sentence . then being served. The shorthand notes omitted the words "with each other and" after the word "concurrent," and it would ! appear that. he must • have actually passed a sentence that" he did not j intend. The Chief Justice (to the prisoner): This means that the sentences are not additional to those you are already serving, but they will run together. Whereas you say you were sentenced to three and a half years, to be followed by detention in a reformatory, that was not the true sentence. The real sentence was in the aggregate one year, to be followed by detention, in a reformatory, and that one year was to be served concurrently with sentences you had already received in the Court of Petty Sessions. The result is that the sentence is very much shorter than you suppose. ■ The Prisoner: I was under the impression that I was to serve three years and a half, and the gaol records say that. The Chief Justice: Apparently that is so, but the records will be corrected. The sentence, as corrected, is a ' very lenient one. The Court ordered that the record be amended by adding the words "with each other and," and thus-making the sentences throughout concurrent.