DIFFERENTIAL SENTENCES

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29342, 22 October 1960, Page 4

DIFFERENTIAL SENTENCES

Appeal Judge “Embarrassed”

The habit of some magistrates in imposing differential sentences on a series of like charges, without giving a reason, could be embarrassing to an appeal Judge, said the Chief Justice (Sir Harold

Barrowclough) in the Supreme Court yesterday. In two appeal cases before his Honour, an Invercargill magistrate had imposed a severe sentence on one of a series of breaking and entering charges, and uniformly lesser sentences on the others.

In the first case, an appeal by Alexander William Anderson, aged 38, a sentence of three years’ imprisonment was imposed on one charge, and one year’s imprisonment on the others, and in the second, an appeal by John Joseph Stace. aged 20, three years’ cumulative imprisonment on two charges was imposed, and six months* imprisonment on another nine. In both oases, the same magistrate seemed to have selected one

charge for a most severe sentence, and imposed a uniformly lower sentence in respect ot the other convictions. said his Honour. “It is difficult to know why he made that differentiation,” his Honour said. \ “I think it is well for me to ,f> f

put on record that I find myself embarrassed in dealing with appeals that come before me in that way without the giving of any special reason for imposing a more severe sentence in one case than in the*others,” said his Honour. , Both appeals, which were in respect of the more severe sentence, and conducted by Mr J. NMatson, were dismissed.