Samson v The the Queen - [2022] NZCA 266

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF NEW ZEALAND

I TE KŌTI PĪRA O AOTEAROA

CA363/2021
[2022] NZCA 266

BETWEEN	SAMUEL MOSES SAMSON Appellant
AND	THE QUEEN Respondent

Hearing:	7 June 2022
Court:	Gilbert, Mander and Fitzgerald JJ
Counsel:	N Levy QC for Appellant M J Lillico for Respondent
Judgment:	27 June 2022 at 9 am

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

AThe application to adduce further evidence is granted.
BThe appeal against sentence is dismissed.

____________________________________________________________________

REASONS OF THE COURT

(Given by Gilbert J)

Following a trial in the High Court at Invercargill, Mr Samson was found guilty of murdering Azalia Wilson, who was 21 years old and the mother of his baby daughter. Nation J sentenced Mr Samson to life imprisonment and ordered him to serve a minimum period of imprisonment (MPI) of 17 years.[1]
[1]R v Samson [2021] NZHC 1335 [Sentencing judgment].
Mr Samson appeals against his sentence. He contends the MPI was manifestly excessive taking account of his mental health issues and disadvantaged upbringing. Mr Samson applies to adduce further evidence in support of his appeal, being a report from Dr Erik Monasterio, a consultant psychiatrist, addressing these issues.
The Crown opposes the application to adduce this further evidence on the basis it is neither fresh nor cogent. The report was prepared prior to sentencing and is therefore not fresh. In any case, the Crown argues the report is not cogent because the information contained in it was covered in two reports which were presented to the Judge for the purposes of sentencing, namely a PAC report and a cultural report prepared under s 27 of the Sentencing Act 2002 (the Act).
The Crown’s position is that the Judge was correct to find that a 17-year MPI was required because the murder was committed with a “high level of brutality, cruelty, depravity, or callousness” in terms of s 104(1)(e) of the Act.[2] Any discount for personal mitigating factors would be more than offset by an appropriate uplift for Mr Samson’s history of violent offending.[3]
[2]At [68].
[3]At [82].
It will be convenient to deal with the application to adduce further evidence after we have summarised the facts of the offending, Mr Samson’s history of violent offending, the pre-sentence reports considered by the Judge and the sentencing judgment.

The offending

The facts of the offending are detailed in the sentencing judgment and do not need to be fully repeated here.
On Friday 15 November 2019, Ms Wilson, who was not living with Mr Samson, made arrangements for the two of them and their baby to spend the weekend together, staying at a motel in Invercargill. Mr Samson, who was then aged 31, went to various venues on the Saturday night while Ms Wilson and the baby remained at the motel. Mr Samson returned by taxi at 1.42 am in an agitated state. He gave the taxi driver $150 for what was only a $15 fare and told him he could expect to see him in the news. Once inside…

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 Samson v The the Queen

Details

AGLC: Samson v The the Queen [2022] NZCA 266
Case: [2022] NZCA 266
Decision Date: 27 June 2022 at 9 am

CaseChat Overview and Summary

In the Court of Appeal of New Zealand, the case of Samson v The Queen was heard by Gilbert, Mander, and Fitzgerald JJ. Samuel Moses Samson, the appellant, was convicted of murdering Azalia Wilson and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum period of imprisonment (MPI) of 17 years. Samson appealed against his sentence, arguing that the MPI was manifestly excessive due to his mental health issues and disadvantaged upbringing. The Crown opposed the application to adduce further evidence on the grounds that it was neither fresh nor cogent.

The court addressed the application to adduce further evidence, which was a report from Dr Erik Monasterio, a consultant psychiatrist, addressing Samson's mental health issues and disadvantaged upbringing. The court decided to admit the report, despite it being prepared prior to sentencing and not provided to the sentencing judge for strategic reasons. The court concluded that the report provided a more complete picture for the sentencing decision, and it was in the interests of justice to admit it.

The court then considered whether the MPI of 17 years was manifestly excessive. The court acknowledged that Samson's upbringing helped to explain his offending, but it did not consider his culpability for the offending to be sufficiently diminished to justify a departure from the statutorily required MPI of at least 17 years. The court found that the offending was premeditated and that any discount that might otherwise have been justified would have to be reduced to take account of Samson's long history of serious and escalating domestic violence.

The court concluded that the application to adduce further evidence was granted, and the appeal against the sentence was dismissed.

Orders