R v Akok Lueth Noi

[2007] NSWDC 383

CITATION:	R v Akok Lueth NOI [2007] NSWDC 383
HEARING DATE(S):	25/05/07, 14/06/07
EX TEMPORE JUDGMENT DATE:	14 June 2007
JURISDICTION:	Criminal
JUDGMENT OF:	Norrish QC DCJ
DECISION:	Term of imprisonment for 2 years pursuant to s12 Crime (Sentencing Procedure) Act. Execution of the sentence is suspended for the term of the sentence. Offender to be released from custody on condition he enter into a good behaviour bond for the term of the sentence.
CATCHWORDS:	CRIMINAL LAW - sentencing - robbery using corporeal violence with wounding in company
LEGISLATION CITED:	Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 Children (Criminal Proceedings) Act 1987 Crimes Act 1900
CASES CITED:	R v Way [2004] NSWCCA 131 Pearce v The Queen (1998) 194 CLR 610 Wong v The Queen (2001) 207 CLR 584 Henry v The Queen (1999) 46 NSWLR 346 R v Jurisic (1998) 45 NSWLR 209 R v Lattouf (unrep, 1996 NSWCCA) Markarian v The Queen (2005) 79 ALJR 1048 R v SDM [2001] NSWCCA 158 R v Pham (1991) 55 ACR 12 The Queen v AEM & Ors [2002] NSWCCA 58 R v GDP (1991) 53 ACR 112 R v DM [2005] NSWCCA 181 DB v Regina [2007] NSWCCA 27 Blackman and Walters [2001] NSWCCA 121 Yardley v Betts (1979) 22 SASR 108 Attorney General's Application No 1 (2002) 56 NSWLR 147
PARTIES:	Regina Akok Lueth Noi
FILE NUMBER(S):	2997/11/0180
SOLICITORS:	C Allison - Director of Public Prosecutions F Way - Legal Aid Service

SENTENCE

1 HIS HONOUR: Sentencing is not a matter of absolute truths or mathematical precision. In R v Way [2004] NSWCCA 131 the Court of Criminal Appeal in discussing Pt 4 Div 1A of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999, whilst noting that it was a further pointer towards the continuation of a wider area of discretion, it was one without resort to some rigid mechanistic or arithmetic approach, which would be unsuited to the difficult task of sentencing [126]. In Pearce v The Queen (1998) 194 CLR 610 at [39], [42] and [46], in the vicinity of that part of the judgment which has come to dominate sentencing in New South Wales, the majority of the High Court said, that it was highly undesirable that the process of sentencing should become more technical than it was already. It should be emphasised that aspects of sentencing were not to be attended by “excessive subtleties and refinements”. It also pointed out in that judgment that sentencing was not a process that leads to a single correct answer, arrived at by some process admitting of mathematical precision. This was precisely the thrust of the High Court judgment in Markarian of two years ago. In Wong v The Queen (2001) 207 CLR 584 at [77] the High Court in striking down guideline judgments for Commonwealth sentencing in New South Wales, referred to the core of the difficulty lying in the “complexity of the sentencing task”. The High Court has continually acknowledged that a sentencing judge must take into account a wide variety…