NORGROVE’S CASE

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 2 June 1928, Page 9

NORGROVE’S CASE

DEATH PENALTY COMMUTED. IMPRISONMENT FOR LIFEFACTORS CONSIDERED. [by telegraph - press association.] AUCKLAND, June 2. A full statement was made by the Prime Minister (the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates) in the Norgrove case as follows:

“The question as to whether Norgpove was -sane within the legal definition of the term was decided by the .jury at the trial, and that question wo® not considered by the Executive Council. The function of the Executive Council was to consider whether there were any facts or circumstances relating to the personal or family history of the prisoner which should be considered by the Executive Council, to whom the law remits the question whether the death penalty should be inflicted. Acting on the advice of the Judge who tided the case, the Government appointed Dr Gray, Inspector-General of Mental Hospitals, and Dr McKHlop, superintendent of -Sunnyside Mental Hospital at Christchurch, to make a special examination and report. It must be borne in -mind that in the case of murder the law allows- only one penalty, but it is them -the duty of the Executive Council in reviewing the case to take into consideration any circumstances which, in cases -other than that of murder, might properly have been, taken in consideration- by the presiding judge in passing sentence. The Government has given full consideration to a very careful report of the above-named doctors, in which, after explaining every source of information, they reviewed (a) the facts -and circumstances- of the tragedy; (ib) the abnormal early personal traits of the prisoner us- -disclosed in his school life, -and the statements- of another school teacher who did not give evidence at the trial; (c) his physical illhealth, which left him largely unoccupied and -subject to fits of depression; (d) the -existence of mental disease in his family, -which, in the opinion of the doctors, affords substantial corroboration of instability which has existed from (his early years, and which has throughout his life been reflected by the exhibitions of -temper and self-indisci-pline; (e) the motive for the crime- and the fact that it was unpremeditated and the result of a quarrel -between himself and the murdered woman. The conditions- ascertained are such as are generally accepted as sufficient to justify the exercise of the prerogative of mercy, and accordingly His Excellency-in-Oouncil has decided to commute the sentence to that of imprisonment for life. ’ ’