The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8 1928. DIFFICULTIES OF JUSTICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 32, 8 February 1928, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8 1928. DIFFICULTIES OF JUSTICE.

For the cause that lacks assistant*. For the wrong that needs resistanof, For the future in the distance And the good thmt we eon dfc

Responsible newspapers arc loth to comment upon proceedings in courts of law. They are mindful of the aura of prestige that surrounds a Court and of the Bench's wellmaintained traditions of learning and impartiality. They are Avell aware that the Court has fuller knowledge than they can possess of the cases before it. In his remarks at the Supreme Court yesterday on crime and punishment, Mr. Justice Reed acknowledged the sense of responsibility felt by the Press, and made its difficult task easier by expressing the opinion that it was right and proper that the sentences of a Judge should be subject to newspaper criticism.

That a Judge should deem it necessary to defend the Court against criticism imputing undue leniency is a sign of the times. In former days criticism was almost entirely in the other direction. Enlightened men had to light hard to mitigate the ferocity of the penal code. In those more rigid days the Judge's task was much easier. To-day he is the embodiment of humanised law, and, according to instruction and inclination, deals with cases on their individual merits. No two cases are exactly alike. Mr. Justice Reed says "that students of criminology have discarded entirely the view that severe penalties are essential to the suppression of crime," but he admits that in the interests of the public it may be necessary to disregard the detrimental effect of imprisonment on the individual, and inflict deterrent punishment. On this point, in respect to a class of offence to which his Honor devoted some attention, the public is not satisfied. It believes that if offending motorists were dealt with more severely there would be fewer such offences. It was this consideration that caused so much comment to be made on a recent case at the Supreme Court. Mr. Justice Reed says that if in the opinion of juries sentences are harsh, they will be disinclined to convict, and that "a certainty of conviction is a far greater deterrent than an occasional exemplary sentence." This is an eminently practical attitude, but J,he state of jury mind that it indicates is by no means satisfactory. In the old penal days it was monstrous that a boy should be hanged or transported for theft, and juries could hardly be blamed for seizing at any pretext for acquittal. It is not monstrous, however, that a reckless motorist who runs over somebody should go to gaol.