SENTENCES OF THE COURT

Taranaki Daily News, 8 February 1928, Page 9

SENTENCES OF THE COURT

CRITICISM NOT IMPROPER - 6 JUDGE’S VIEWS NOT SACROSCANT. IMPARTIALITY UNQUESTIONABLE. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, Feb. 7. Addressing the Grand Jury at the Supreme Court criminal sessions, Mr Justice Reid said that it was quite right and proper that the sentences of a judge should be subject to the criticism of newspapers. It would be an unhealthy state of affairs if a judge’s sentence or judgment should be sacrosanct. Leading newspapers, with a sense of the responsibility attaching to the views they express, only criticised sentences knowing full well they could not be in possession of all that was known to the judge, but there had been exceptions. His Honour mentioned a case in which he had granted probation to a sharebroker who had misappropriated £l5O entrusted to him to invest. -As a rule, breaches of trust were visited by a sentence of imprisonment, but in this case representations were made by him, with some doubt, to grant probation. He had imposed terms requiring complete restitution and the payment of all costs to which the country had been put. At the same session some men were charged with breaking and entering. One of them was convicted of receiving goods knowing them to have been stolen, and the stolen goods recovered from his possession were valued at £l5O. The police report showed that there had been a series of cases of breaking and entering, and that the prisoner was the head of a gang of thieves who were known to be responsible for these crimes. “I sentenced him to two years’ imprisonment,” said his Honour, “and a local paper of some standing commented on the discrepancy of the sentences. It actually used the argument that in each case the amount involved w-as the same, and that in each case there had been restitution. “Criticism of that sort,” said his Honour, “does no good; it even works harm amongst unthinking readers as tending to show doubt of the impartiality of the Bench.”