Full Court Minute Books

Case S276/2013

Achurch v. The Queen

Case No.

S276/2013

Case Information

Lower Court Judgment

22/05/2013 Supreme Court of New South Wales (Court of Criminal Appeal) (Bathurst CJ, McClellan JA, Johnson J, Garling J, Bellew J)

[2011] NSWCCA 186

[2013] NSWCCA 117

Catchwords

Criminal law – Sentencing – Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW) (“the Act”) – Appellant convicted of drugs offences in 2008 sentenced to non-parole period of 6 years – Crown appeal against sentence successful and non-parole period increased to 13 years – Court of Criminal Appeal held trial judge had erred in approach to sentencing – Court of Criminal Appeal issued new sentence in line with R v Way; R v Sellars; and R v Knight – Two months after successful crown appeal High Court handed down judgment holding that Way; Sellars; and Knight wrongly decided – Whether sentence imposed contrary to law per s 43(1)(a) of the Act – Whether appropriate that s 43(1)(a) be used as proxy for an appeal.

Short Particulars

Documents

08/11/2013 Hearing (SLA, Sydney)

22/11/2013 Notice of appeal

13/12/2013 Written submissions (Appellant)

13/12/2013 Chronology (Appellant)

16/01/2014 Written submissions (Respondent)

29/01/2014 Reply

13/02/2014 Hearing (Full Court, Canberra) (Audio-visual recording)

02/04/2014 Judgment  (Judgment summary)