Discharges without conviction: Is the law's safety valve blowing out? As Judge Davidson said in the Filipo case, a discharge without conviction is the law's safety valve, ensuring a moment's stupidity does not ruin someone's life. The appeal judges found it was "low-level offending" but felt employers would look beyond the "bare fact of a conviction". The District Court judge discharged the offender without conviction, and granted name suppression, on the grounds a conviction would cost him his job. The District Court judge convicted her but with no penalty, finding the offending minor but aggravated by previous incidents.

Source: Stuff October 28, 2016 20:30 UTC