AN INDETERMINATE SENTENCE

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 122, 21 November 1908, Page 5

AN INDETERMINATE SENTENCE

ITS VALIDITY QUESTIONED. AN INTERESTING POINT. An interesting point of law, in reference to an indeterminate sentence imposed under the Habitual Criminal Offenders Act, of 1906, was brought up in an application before his Honour Mr. Justice Chapman this morning. The application was made by Sir. H. H. Ostler, instructed by Mr. A. H. Johnstone, of New Plymouth. The facts of the case were detailed by Mr. Ostler as follow : — A man named William Jenkinson Sparrow in November, 1906, was tried at Wellington on a charge of theft. The indictment showed that the theft had been committed on the 13th September, 1906. Sparrow was convicted and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. After the date of the offence, but before the date of the trial, the Habitual Criminal Offenders Act came into force. Against Sparrow there were the requisite number of previous convictions, and he was declared to be an habitual criminal. He was not represented by counsel at the trial. The sentence of two years has now expired, but Sparrow is detained'in custody in Ins Majesty's prison at New Plymouth, under that part of the sentence which declared him an habitual criminal. The present ' application was f6r a i'ulo nisi to show cause why a writ of habeas corpus should not be issued to discharge Sparrow from custody, under' the indeterminate sentence he is now undergoing. Mr. Ostler gave as his grounds for the application that the offenco of which Sparrow had "been convicted had been committed before the coming into operation of the Act under which the offender was now undergoing imprisonment. Further, the Act was not retrospective in its application, and that the part of the sentence which declared Sparrow an habitual criminal was made without jurisdiction. His Honour granted the rule nisi. Argument will be heard on the 30th instant.