APPEAL COURT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 12 April 1922, Page 2

APPEAL COURT

PRISONERS

AND REFORMATIVE

SENTENCES

(United Press Association)

WELt-iNGTON, April 11

While giving judgment as to the appeal of Donald Pugh, who was sentenced at Christchurch Supreme Court to five years’ reformative .treatment on lus conviction on a charge of attempted carnal knowledge of a girl seven years of age, and who appealed against the length of the sentence, the Court of Appeal Sir R. Stout, Justices Sun, Hoskmg Stringer, and Adams this morning made a definite pronouncement as to the position taken liy the .Court in regard to appeals from prisoners defamed luv reformative purposes. The Court hud come to the conclusion that leave, to upi,eal should be refused in every case where tlifconly punishment inflicted was reformative detention. The I nsons Board had power to recommend to llic Governor-General at any time that a person undergoing a term of reformative detention should be released on probation or discharged altogether and the Governor-General may give effect to such recommendation. If .therefore. a prisoner undergoing a sentence of reformative detention desired to he released on probation or discharged altogethei, he should ask the' Prisons Board to consider his case and to make a recommendation in his favour. If the case was one in which such recommendation could not bo obtained then it was not one in which the Court would he disposed to reduce the term of reformative detention. When sentence of reformative detention was imposed, it was not contemplated that a prisoner would he detained for the whole term, for that tenn was fixed merely as a, maximum period, it being expected that before the expiration of that term the .prisoner, will have been found deserving’ of release, either qualified or absolute. “It is useless therefore” the judgment continued, “for this Court to he asked to consider the question of reducing that maximum, and the Court has decided to adopt the practice of refusing leave in every such case. If this Court entertained applications for leave to appeal in such cases refusal of leave might he regarded by t,he Prisons Board as an indication of opinion hostile to the prisoner and it would thus interfere, with the exercise of the hoard’s discretion. It is better therefore, in the interests of prisoners, for this Court to definitely adopt the practice indicated. The application in this particular case is refused accordingly-” ' , ,