WILLIAMS v The State of Western Australia

Wayne John Williams was convicted of wilful murder and sentenced to strict security life imprisonment by the Supreme Court of Western Australia on 1 May 1995. Williams now seeks an order pursuant to s 37 of the Sentencing Act 1995 (WA) providing for the recall of the order imposing sentence and the imposition of a sentence in accordance with written law applicable to the circumstances of his case. The applicant contends that he should have been sentenced under the sentencing regime in force on 20 April 1994, the date when the offence was committed. The central legal issue in this case is whether the mandatory punishment for wilful murder encompasses statutory requirements concerning parole, and whether s 11 of the Criminal Code and s 10 of the Sentencing Act, have any part to play in the present case. The Court held that the mandatory punishment for wilful murder did not change with the result that the applicant is not at liberty to rely upon provisions such as s 11 of the Criminal Code (under the second regime) or s 10 of the Sentencing Act (under the third regime) in asserting that a correction of his sentence is required on the ground that (as allowed for by those provisions) a person cannot be punished to any greater extent than was authorised by the law in force when the offence is committed. The Court concluded that the applicant's application for correction of sentence pursuant to s 37 of the Sentencing Act 1995 will be dismissed.