Mita v R

Case [2012] NZCA 137 4 April 2012

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IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF NEW ZEALAND

CA594/2011
[2012] NZCA 137

BETWEEN KEEGAN KENDRIX MITA
Appellant

AND THE QUEEN
Respondent

Hearing: 29 March 2012

Court: Randerson, Keane and Lang JJ

Counsel: S Jefferson for Appellant
B D Tantrum and M R Walker for Respondent

Judgment: 4 April 2012 at 9.30 a.m.

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

The appeal against sentence is dismissed.

REASONS OF THE COURT

(Given by Lang J)

Mr Mita pleaded guilty in the District Court at Napier to a total of ten charges arising out of four separate incidents. They included charges of demanding money with menaces, assault with a weapon, possession of an offensive weapon, burglary, assaulting a female and driving whilst disqualified on a third or subsequent occasion.
On 5 August 2011, Judge Adeane sentenced Mr Mita to an effective sentence of four years imprisonment on all charges.[1]
[1] R v Mita, DC Napier CRI-2011-041-139, 5 August 2011.
Mr Mita appeals to this Court against his sentence. He contends that the starting points the Judge adopted were too high, and that this caused him to impose an end sentence that was manifestly excessive.

The charges

The charges related to offending that occurred between 21 December 2010 and 29 January 2011.

21 December 2010

On 21 December 2010, officers in a police patrol vehicle observed Mr Mita riding a motorcycle in Napier. He rode into the driveway of a residential address, and stopped at the rear. He had been disqualified from driving for a period of six months just four days earlier, on 17 December 2010. When the police officers spoke to him, he admitted that he was disqualified from driving but said that “it didn’t count as it was only a motorbike”. This was the third occasion on which Mr Mita had been convicted of driving whilst disqualified.

26 January 2011

Just after midnight on 26 January 2011, Mr Mita and a group of associates were in a car park near a fast food outlet in central Napier. As a car containing several young persons was leaving the drive-through exit of the outlet, one of the occupants yelled out gang-related abuse to Mr Mita and his associates. Mr Mita has a strong association with the Mongrel Mob gang.
Approximately thirty minutes later, Mr Mita and a female associate were driving through the Napier central business district when they saw the vehicle they had seen earlier in the car park. They pursued the vehicle along residential streets on Napier Hill, and were eventually able to cut it off on a narrow stretch of road.
Mr Mita then left his vehicle and approached the other vehicle. He pulled out a flip knife with a three-inch blade and opened the driver’s door of the other vehicle. He then demanded to know who had been responsible for yelling the abuse in the carpark.
While making these demands, Mr Mita repeatedly jabbed his knife at the driver of the vehicle. The driver suffered several cuts and puncture wounds to his…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

Continue reading Mita v R

Details

AGLC: Mita v R [2012] NZCA 137
Case: [2012] NZCA 137
Decision Date: 4 April 2012

CaseChat Overview and Summary

Keegan Kendrix Mita appealed against the sentence of four years imprisonment imposed by Judge Adeane in the District Court at Napier. Mita had been convicted of ten charges arising from four separate incidents, including demanding money with menaces, assault with a weapon, possession of an offensive weapon, burglary, assaulting a female and driving while disqualified on a third or subsequent occasion. Mita argued that the starting points the Judge adopted were too high and that this caused him to impose an end sentence that was manifestly excessive.

The Court of Appeal considered the argument that the starting points were too high, particularly in relation to the charges arising out of the incident on 26 January 2011. The Court found that the facts of this case were different in nature to other cases cited by counsel and that a starting point of three years imprisonment was within the available range. The Court did, however, agree with counsel that a starting point of two years imprisonment for the burglary charges was too high and that a starting point of no more than 18 months imprisonment could be justified.

The Court also considered whether the end sentence was manifestly excessive. The Court found that Mita's previous convictions for a wide variety of offences, including violent offending, justified an uplift in the sentence. The Court also found that the additional charges arising out of the incidents on 21 December 2010 and 28 January 2011 were not minor offending and that the Judge was entitled to impose an uplift for those charges. The Court found that an effective sentence of four years imprisonment properly reflected the totality of the offending.

The appeal against sentence was dismissed.

Orders