JUDGES’ SENTENCES

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVIII, Issue 47, 7 February 1928, Page 5

JUDGES’ SENTENCES

NEWSPAPER CRITICISM MR JUSTICE REED'S COMMENT. “QUITE RIGHT AND PROPER.” Auckland. February 7. Addressing the Grand Jury at the Supreme Court criminal sessions Mr Justice Reed said tit was quite right and proper that sentences of a Judge should be subject to the criticism of newspapers. It would be an unhealthy state of affairs if a Judge's sentence or judgmen t should lie sacrosanct. Leading newspapers, with a sense of the responsibility attaching to the view they express, seldom wantonly criticised sentences, knowing full well they cannot be in possession of all that is known to the Judge, but there had been exceptions. His Honour mentioned a case in which he granted probation to a sharebroker who had misappropriated £l5O entrusted to him to invest. As a rule, breaches of trust were visited by a sentence of imprisonment, biit in this case representations were made by the Probation Officer which induced him. with some doubt, to grant probation. He had imposed terms requiring complete restitution and payment of all the costs to which the counti* had been put. At the same session some men were charged with breaking and entering. One of them was convicted of receiving goods knowing them to have been stolen, and stplen goods recovered from his possession were valued at £l5O. The police report showed that there had been a series of cases of breaking and entering, and that uhe prisoner was the head of a gang of thieves who were known to be responsible for these crimes “I sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment,” said His Honour, “and a local paper of some standing commented on tho discrepancy of the sentences, and actually used the argument that in each case the amount involved was the same, and that in each case there had been restitution. Criticism of that sort.” said His Honour, “does no good, and even works harm amongst unthinking readers as tending to show a doubt of the impartiality of the Sench.”