New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments

Topic

Party to offending

Legal area

Court

19 Apr 2023

R v P [2023] NZHC 842

Citation

[2023] NZHC 842
Court

High Court

The defendant's causal cognitive and mental health impairments materially reduced culpability for his limited role as a counsellor/encourager of assault; given that reduction and the defendant's rehabilitative progress the appropriate sentence is non‑custodial: 12 months supervision plus 4 months community detention with curfew; permanent name suppression was granted because publication would likely cause extreme hardship to the defendant's particularly vulnerable young son and that hardship outweighed the presumption of open justice in respect of identification given the defendant's low leve…
26 Jul 2019

ANDERSON v R [2019] NZCA 335

Citation

[2019] NZCA 335
Court

Court of Appeal

The jury's guilty verdicts were reasonable because contemporaneous text messages, admissions by the two burglars, and cellphone polling data placed the appellant's phone in the Mount Maunganui area at the time of the burglaries and supported the inference he drove the offenders; any limitation on cross-examination after the Judge's questions did not cause a miscarriage of justice because it could not have undermined the unavoidable inference from the polling data.
7 Nov 2016

HARMER v R [2016] NZHC 2655

Citation

[2016] NZHC 2655
Court

High Court

On substitution of convictions from aggravated offences to non‑aggravated burglary and assault the correct starting point for burglary was two years and three months; uplifted three months for prior offending and reduced two months for limited mitigation, producing an end sentence of two years and four months imprisonment for burglary, concurrent nine months for assault; the District Court strike warning was cancelled as there was no statutory basis after substitution of convictions.

New Zealand Case Law

R v P [2023] NZHC 842

ANDERSON v R [2019] NZCA 335

HARMER v R [2016] NZHC 2655