CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 71, Issue 218, 14 September 1928, Page 10

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

A SEVERE SENTENCE REASONS GIVEN BY A JUDGE SYDNEY, Sept. 1. It is not very often that a Judge has the opportunity of stating very delinitely Ins reasons lor imposing an exceptionally heavy sentence. Judge Curiewis recently imposcvl a sentence of 15 years’ imprisonnient on a man who was convicted of pointing a loaded revolver at a girl whose room he entered! one night. The man, one Leslie Eugene Gosper, is appealing to the Full Court against the severity of the sentence, and in. accordance w'ith practice, the Judge presented a report to the higher tribunal. This report went beyond the usual bounds of such communications. and is. in fact, a very interesting document revealing the motive in the mind of at least one Juid-ge. “1 hold the opinion,” wrote Judge Curlewis, f ‘that, above all things, it is important that the idea should not become prevalent in the community that the Judges regard with equanrmity perils which they do not share. If it does become prevalent, then private vengeance will be extracted. So far as the law-abiding portion of the community is concerned I feel very strongly—perhaps I feel too strongly—that those in whom the power of passing sentence is vested live in secure surroundings, and they and their families are not the subject of outrages. The less well-to-do members of the community have to live either in the crowded haunts of criminals, or in comparatively remote -nots where vacant land gives opportunity for the vilest kind of outrage —very often on little children of both sexes.

“These persons look to the Judges for the protection of themselves and their families, especially their daughters. In the present case, had the father, though without actual necessity, shot his daughter’s assailant dead, no jury would have convicted him. The jury would say that the father was right in inflicting an adequate punishment when the .Niw would inflict an inadequate one. I regard it as significant that in recent years light sentences have been passed for brutal outrages, and the prediction, made at the tmie, that a crop of outrages would follow, has been borne out by subsequent events. With regard to the evilly disposed section of the community, I consider it my duty to inspire not only fear, but terror, in the case of crimes of violence. In my opinion men have even recently been sentenced to death who were no more morally guilty than Gosper. 1 am also guided by the principles set out in Halsbury’s Laws of England. “I have given my reasons for the sentence of 15 years because of the recent reduction of a sentence by the Criminal Appeals Court, pronounced by me. from ten years to two years, in a case where a prisoner had deliberately thrown a corrosive liquid in the face of a successful rival for a woman’s affections—the conviction being under the Crimes Act. which provided for penal servitude for life. The reduction of that sentence has made me apprehensive that in passing sentences in causes of crimes of violence, I might mistake the principles of punishment, and in order that r may receive the guidance of this Court I give my reasons for the sentence <Mf 15 years.

“So far as the prisoner is concerned-, I see no advantage in a heavy sentence, as so much in his life is gone at the expiration of the sentence that he has little chance of reform; but the sentence has also to be considered in relation to the law-abid-ing portion of the community, and the evilly-disposed portion.” The Court postponed consideration of the appeal.