Case M82/2015

The Queen v. Pham

Case No.

M82/2015

Case Information

Lower Court Judgment

5/09/2014 Supreme Court of Victoria (Court of Appeal) (Maxwell P, Osborn & Kyrou JJA)

[2014] VSCA 204

Catchwords

Criminal law – Sentence- Sentencing procedure – Sentencing statistics, schedules, tariffs, comparisons, etc. – Consistency for federal offences – Where respondent brought 577 grams of heroin into Australia and pleaded guilty to one charge of importing a marketable quantity of a border controlled drug – Where respondent was originally sentenced to eight years and six months imprisonment with a non-parole period of six years – Where sentence was reduced on appeal to six years imprisonment with a non-parole period of four years – Whether federal offenders should be sentenced in accordance with “current sentencing practices” of a particular State or Territory to the exclusion of sentencing practices in other jurisdictions – Whether it is permissible to determine objective seriousness of the offending by reference to a statistical analysis of comparable cases which grades those cases by the weight of the drugs expressed as a percentage of the statutory threshold for a more serious offence.

Short Particulars

Documents

15/05/2015 Hearing (SLA, Melbourne)

29/05/2015 Notice of appeal

19/06/2015 Written submissions (Appellant)

19/06/2015 Chronology (Appellant)

17/07/2015 Written submissions (Respondent)

24/07/2015 Reply

09/09/2015 Hearing (Full Court, Canberra) (Audio-visual recording)

04/11/2015 Judgment (Judgment summary)