COMMUTED SENTENCES

Southland Times, Issue 19229, 20 May 1921, Page 2

COMMUTED SENTENCES

CABINET DECISIONS CRITICISED. 1 STATEMENT BY’ HON. E. P. LEE. (Special to the Times.) WELLINGTON, May 18. Adverse criticism of two recent decisions of the Cabinet has appeared in several quarters. One decision was for the release of a man named Whitta, who had been sentenced to a term of imprisonment by a Magistrate on a charge of bookmaking. The other decision was the commutation of the sentence of death imposed upon the man Matthews for murder at Timaru. The sentence was reduced to imprisonment for life. It has been suggested that the Minister of Justice interfered unduly with the course of justice, and had established undesirable precedents. The Minister, the Hon. E. P. Lee, made a statement on these points to-day. Referring first to the bookmaking case, he said that the position was that the Magistrate who had tried the case and inflicted the sentence reported subsequently that he would not have imprisoned Whitta if certain matters had been before him during the trial. The Cabinet had no power to revise the sentence by substituting a fine for imprisonment. It had to decide whether Whitta would serve his sentence or whether in view of the Magistrate’s report he should be released. The fair course in the opinion of Ministers was to release the man, and this was done.

“In regard to the case of Matthews, who was found guilty of murder and senteneed to death, I have established no dangerous precedent,” said the Minister. “There is a statutory provision that death sentences are to be considered by the Governor-Gen-eral before, they are carried into effect. The Governor-General acts on the advice of the Cabinet. The case of Matthews came before the Cabinet in the ordinary routine, and the Cabinet decided, in view of the conflict of medical evidence at the trial, to have the man examined by two well known experts in mental disorders, Dr Hay and Dr Hassall. Another expert of high standing, Dr Levinge, had already expressed in the public press his doubts as to the man’s sanity. The opinion arrived at by the doctors after full and careful consideration was that Matthews was insane, and on this ground the sentence was commuted by the Cabinet to imprisonment for life. The case was not a precedent. Within a year there had been a similar case at Dunedin. It is not unusual for a judge to direct a jury that an accused person is responsible at law for the offence with which he is charged, and then after conviction to recommend commutation of the sentence on the ground of the prisQner’s mental condition. The decision of the Cabinet in the Matthews case was in no way an interference with the Court. The Crimes Act distinctly anticipates that commutation of death sentences may be necessary, and it makes provision accordingly. The subsequent transfer of Matthews from prison to a mental hospital where he is held in close confinement is in accordance with the usual practice. Persons committed to prisons and found on examination to be of unsound mind are transferred to mental hospitals. There are no facilities for handling such persons in prisons, and they ought not to be kept among ordinary prisoners.