Johnson v The Queen

Criminal law – Sentencing - Federal offences - Appellant convicted of two counts of attempting to obtain possession of prohibited imports to which s 233B, Customs Act 1901 (Cth) applied - Whether sentencing judge applied peculiarly Western Australian sentencing principles - Whether express reference to relevant considerations in s 16A(2), Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) necessary.

Criminal law – Sentencing - Federal offences - Appellant convicted of two counts of attempting to obtain possession of prohibited imports to which s 233B, Customs Act 1901 (Cth) applied - Totality principle where sentencing for commission of several offences - Whether sentencing judge must fix sentence for each offence and aggregate them before determining questions of totality or concurrence - Whether sentencing judge may in some circumstances lower each sentence before aggregation - Instinctive or intuitive synthesis approach to sentencing.

Criminal law – Sentencing - Federal offences - Appellant convicted of two counts of attempting to obtain possession of prohibited imports to which s 233B, Customs Act 1901 (Cth) applied - One transaction rule - Where two offences contain common element - Effect of factual errors made by Court of Criminal Appeal - Whether factual errors made by Court of Criminal Appeal in dismissing appeal necessarily leads to conclusion that sentencing judge erred - Whether sentence properly reflects consideration of whether defendant was truly engaged upon one multi-faceted course of criminal conduct.

Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) – ss 16A, 16B, 19(2).

Customs Act 1901 (Cth) – s 233B.