COMMUTED SENTENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 234, 2 October 1940, Page 6

COMMUTED SENTENCE.

Protests against the Executive Council's decision to commute the death sentence in the Cartman case were not inspired by the hope that that decision might be reversed. It would create an undesirable precedent if such a decision, having been made and announced, were to be altered because of public disapproval. Moreover, as the decision was influenced, or determined, by the policy of the Government, which is opposed on 1 principle to capital punishment, the circumstances of the crime—it can now be seen—cannot be relevant as a ground for criticising the decision. The policy, if sincerely supported, must stand whatever the circumstances —even if a man were convicted of having in cold blood murdered twenty children. But a Government whose principled objection to capital punishment has been demonstrated to

be strong and consistent has no right to retain provision for capital punishment on the Statute Book. It should alter the law, and make it clear beyond the possibility of vexatious doubt, to all potential murderers, that since November, 1935, murder in New Zealand has become just another crime, the penalty for which may be substantially shortened if the prisoner be of good behaviour