New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments

Topic

Drug addiction mitigation

Legal area

Court

2 Oct 2023

THE KING v SIGNAL [2023] NZHC 2757

Citation

[2023] NZHC 2757
Court

High Court

Given the aggravating features but the defendant's peripheral, non-physical role, the judge set a global starting point of 4 years 4 months (4 years manslaughter + 4 months uplift for wounding), applied reductions of six months for addiction causation and four months for rehabilitation prospects, and substantial bail credits (11 months and 7 months for periods on EM bail) resulting in a remaining 24 months imprisonment which would convert to 12 months home detention; accounting for 19 months pretrial custody and extensive EM bail credit the court imposed a five month period of home detention…
18 Jul 2023

THE KING v TIORI [2023] NZHC 1868

Citation

[2023] NZHC 1868
Court

High Court

Judge adopted a total starting point of eight years' imprisonment for the cumulative offending (six years for the grievous bodily harm band three offence plus concurrent shorter starting points for other offences), applied a 25% discount for the guilty plea, a 15% discount for personal background factors under the causative contribution approach (s 27 material), and a further 5% discount for addiction and rehabilitative prospects, resulting in a final sentence of four years and five months' imprisonment, with all component sentences to be served concurrently.
13 Jun 2023

TUARAE v R [2023] NZCA 229

Citation

[2023] NZCA 229
Court

Court of Appeal

The Court held the sentencing Judge's total 25% discount (10% for background including cannabis use, 10% for youth, 5% for good character) was within the permissible range; no separate cannabis addiction discount was required; bail conditions were not restrictive enough to merit a discount; the resulting sentence of four years and six months imprisonment was not manifestly excessive, so the appeal is dismissed.
3 Jun 2021

MCCORMICK v NEW ZEALAND POLICE [2021] NZHC 1299

Citation

[2021] NZHC 1299
Court

High Court

The High Court accepted a 20 month starting point for the three burglaries as a baseline but upheld an uplift of one year nine months for multiple and serious breaches of a protection order plus smaller uplifts for receiving and breach of supervision; after applying totality and modest discounts for remorse, rehabilitation and guilty plea (but finding the evidence of drug addiction insufficient to justify a significant additional discount or the imposition of home detention) the resulting end sentence of approximately 29–30 months was not manifestly excessive, so the appeal was dismissed.

New Zealand Case Law

THE KING v SIGNAL [2023] NZHC 2757

THE KING v TIORI [2023] NZHC 1868

TUARAE v R [2023] NZCA 229

MCCORMICK v NEW ZEALAND POLICE [2021] NZHC 1299