A JUDGE'S WORK.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8794, 9 February 1909, Page 7

A JUDGE'S WORK.

CRITICISM REPLIED TO

(Per Peess Association.) WELLINGTON, Feb. 9. The New Zealand Times yesterday morning commented upon the apparent inconsistency of a sentence of five years' imprisonment passed upon a prisoner found guilty of common theft last week, the jury having discarded the. graver allegation of violence. This, it was pointed out, appeared excessively severe when compared with sentences passed by the same judge at previous sessions. At the Supreme Court yesterday afternoon, dealing with the case of a man who had pleaded guilty to a charge of breaking and entering and theft, Mr Justice Cooper had some comment to make on the circumstances that determine a judge in sentencing a prisoner. As cases depended on circumstances, his Honor said, a judge had to exercise a wide discretion in passing sentence on prisoners. There were cases where persons had been convicted of certain offences, and where the circumstances of the case and the character and past record of the persons showed the necessity, for the safety of the public, that such persons should be effectually impeded and prevented in their career of crime. There were other cases in which the crime alleged was the same and the same circumstances existed, but where there was a difference in the point of actual criminality. A judge dealt with the matter ivith entirely different views. "I make these remarks," said his Honor, "because it is impossible for persons not on the judgment seat to appreciate properly the reasons that move a judge to be lenient in one case and in another case to be severe." His Honor then referred to a ease last week, in which, he said, the circumstances were much the same as in the present case, and in which he had imposed a sentence of five years' imprisonment on a hardened criminal; "and yet in this case," said his Honor, "the circumstances are such as justify me on thefull recommendation of the probation officer in admitting this man to probation. Legally, perhaps, the cases are the same, but not so otherwise. The prisoner, under the influence of liquor, went in open daylight, in the middle of the afternoon, into_ a shop in full view of the police station. He had pleaded guilty to the charge, ihis previous character had been uniformly good, everything went to show that lie had been an honest, hard-working man —it was reasonable )to expelct that reform would follow without punishment. His brother had offered to take him to work on a farm in Taranaki. This was one of those cases in which a person not knowing the facts of the case would say that the judge had exercised undue leniency, that there was , inconsistency, but between the course adopted in this case and the course adopted in another case in which the offence might seem less, the previous character of the persons and the circumstances of the case make all the difference." His Honor then admitted the prisoner to two years' probation on condition that he should go up to his brother's farm in Taranaki and pay off the costs of the prosecution in quarterly instalments.