Thread: Discharge Without Conviction

Originally Posted by Allgood

(1) If a person who is charged with an offence is found guilty or pleads guilty, the court may discharge the offender without conviction, unless by any enactment applicable to the offence the court is required to impose a minimum sentence. (2) A discharge under this section is deemed to be an acquittal.

Definition of acquittal: Acquittal is a formal declaration in a court of law that someone who has been accused of a crime is innocent.

Seems to me to be quite straightforward.

He isnt innocent because he pleaded guilty to shooting an air rifle at someone and injuring them..........but he gets a judgement ruling that he is now innocent?

If the judge wanted to reflect all the circumstances and consider the offence at the lowest end of the scale ( ie he was provoked etc etc) then the appropriate sentence should have been a conviction and discharge without penalty.

The conviction on his record would reflect that he committed an offence, the discharge without penalty reflects the courts desire to take into account mitigating factors and treat him leniently..................

BUT, he should still be convicted.........In my opinion.

The judge second guessed what NZ Immigration would do with the offender if convicted.. Arguably inappeopriate, arguably she should have assumed NZI would deal fairly and reasonably with the offender. Arguably she was arrogant in not doing so.

NZ Immigration was nevertheless saved a BIG potential headache as he would be hard to repatriate to a place where he is expected to be unsafe.