A HARSH SENTENCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14857, 11 June 1910, Page 7

A HARSH SENTENCE.

We'cannot affect to be surprised ati the fact .that the sentence which has this week been passed upon Joseph Pawelka in the Supreme Court a f Palmerston North has excitod amazed and indignant protest. It is with the greatest hesitation that at any time we venture to criticise « judgment tliat lias beon 'delivered or a sentence that has been passed by any member of the judiciary, whether' in the higher or in the lower courts, , and the press throughout the Dominion may as a whole claim that it : is reluctant to admit into its columns any statements that may involve a reflection upon til© administration of justice. But when, as seems to us to have happened in this case, justice has ijself been outraged the maintenance of silence would be pusillanimous and mischievous, For the infliction of a sentence that, judged by the ordinary standards, is, harsh to the extent of being apparently vindictive car only have the effect of. arousing public sympathy on behalf of the criminal, 'and that is about the last thing that can bo desired in tho community. Particularly will people, who contrast'the sentence of six months' imprisonment that was passed a few day 6 ago upon a man convicted in Wellington of taking tho life of another with the sentence of twenty-one years' imprisonment upon Pawelka for arson and a sories of thefts, several of tho latter committed at a time when a whole countryside was up in arms in pursuit of him and he was seeking the ordinary means of. sustcnanco, be disposed to feel that.Payreika has been treated with altogether'undue severity and to account for the sentence which has' been passed upon him by the explanation that he is beingmade to suffer the penalty for crimes that have not. been sheeted-home

to him. It is possible that a person v/ith the qualities that are possessed by Pawelka. can bo a very grave danger 'to society, as is asserted by the Evening Post in an attempt to excuse the severity of the (sentence, and Pawelka himself may bo a suitable case for the application of tho'Habitual Criminals Act, but, even so, the imposition upon him of a sentence of fourteen years' imprisonment for the thefts he committed, cumulative upon a term of seven years for arson, must shock the public sense of justice.