R v Martin No. Sccrm-00-104

[2000] SASC 253

R v MARTIN
[2000] SASC 252

Court of Criminal Appeal:  Prior, Williams and Gray JJ

1. This is an application for leave to appeal against sentence.  The application was refused by a single judge.  We have considered the matter in private in accordance with Criminal Appeal Rule 15.

2. The applicant was arraigned in the District Court in January on two counts of endangering life (s 29(1) Criminal Law Consolidation Act 1935 (CLCA).  In April, a fresh Information was filed with respect to the same events referred to in the first Information.  The charges were then charges of creating a risk of bodily harm: s 29(3) CLCA.  The applicant pleaded guilty.  The sentencing judge invoked s 18A of the Criminal Law (Sentencing) Act 1988 (CLSA), allowed for the applicant’s pleas of guilty and imposed a single sentence of three years and three months with a non-parole period of two years and three months commencing from 27 September 1999.

3. The single judge refused leave to appeal on the grounds that the applicant’s offending “was a bad example and, given his antecedents, the sentence was within the range of the (sentencing judge’s) discretion”. 

4. We agree with the single judge and refuse leave to appeal.  We do not think it arguable that the exercise of the trial judge’s sentencing discretion miscarried, nor do we think that there is any real element of injustice in refusing leave given that there is little prospect of the appeal succeeding against the circumstances of these two offences, the totality of the applicant’s conduct on the occasion the subject of the charges and his antecedents.

5. We direct that the parties be advised that leave to appeal has been refused.