A CONVICTION QUASHED.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20287, 21 December 1927, Page 10

A CONVICTION QUASHED.

CASE OF DESERTING SEAMEN. ELUCIDATION OF THE LAW. (Peb United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, December 20. According to a judgment ’ v the Chief Justice (Sir Charles Skerrett) it is necessary when a seaman is prosecuted for absence from his ship to state the country where he has signed on befor e he can be imprisoned, as under the law a magistrate has no power to sentence to imprisonment a seaman who has signed on in New Zealand, but only if he has signed on elsewhere. Similarly in England, ■ seaman who has signed on here cannot be imprisoned there. The case was a motion to make absolute an order nisi calling upon Hie. magistrate at Nelson to show cause why the conviction of Richard Mulvanev for deserting from the Waipori at New Plymouth should not he quashed without a writ of certiorari actually issuing. His Honor treated the motion also as a motion to quash a conviction. There was, in his Honor’s opinion, no evidence before the 'magistrate as to the place where the defendant was engaged, lhat fact was not in issue before conviction, hut it became relevant after 'he conviction to determine the punishment. The conviction was quashed with £lO 10s costs.