Appeal Court reduces 16-years sentence for brutal wife killer [1]
Monday, April 14, 2014 - 10:15
The first sitting of Tonga’s Court of Appeal which ended on Wednesday, April 9 in Nuku'alofa delivered judgments, that included reducing a 16-years sentence imposed on a convicted killer who sharpened his knife and stabbed his sleeping wife 23 times. The court replaced it with 10-years imprisonment with the final two-years suspended.
The judges said although this was a bad case involving brutal violence, the Crown realistically accepted that the sentence was “manifestly excessive”.
The appellant and his wife had a stormy relationship and had separated and it appeared she had formed an association with another man. Under the stress of the situation, he went to where his wife was living carrying a cooking knife he had sharpened. He entered the bedroom where she was sleeping in the early hours of the morning and stabbed her 23 times causing her death. He went almost immediately to the police and admitted what he had done, and one these facts seems to have been fortunate in the jury’s verdict.
The appellant who was a first time offender has two small children then aged six and four-years old. For the purpose of the sentence he was assessed by a psychiatrist as having suffered Adjustment Disorder at the time of the offending but as being fully in remission when the assessment was carried out. A further mitigating factor was that the jury must have found that the appellant’s attack on the victim was provoked by her conduct.
"In a case involving extreme violence it presented a difficult sentencing exercise. The court remarked more generally in Tu’itavake v R {2005 Tonga LR 348 at (12) that sentencing in provocation cases presented a special problem. There can be no set tariffs. Culpability must be assessed in the particular circumstances of the case. A trial judge has broad discretion, however as it appeared in this case the judge’s sentence was entirely insupportable and must be corrected."
Manslaughter
The judges said this offending a suggested sentencing range of 10-12 years after a contested trial where the accused had been found guilty of manslaughter committed when he/she had been carrying a knife and used great brutality in response to provocation.
"We consider in this case that the combination of extreme violence (the use of the knife 23 times on a sleeping woman) and the absence of provocative behaviour at the actual time of the attack require a higher starting point (before mitigating features are taken into account) beyond 10-12 years range. The starting point should be 14-years imprisonment. But substantial credit must be given for the early confession and guilty plea, the appellant’s remorse, his disordered state of mind and the fact that he was a first time offender. In light of these matters we are of the view that an appropriate sentence is 10-years imprisonment.”
The judges said that the appellant's prospects of rehabilitation seemed to be good and that he was most unlikely to find himself in circumstances where there was a similar or indeed any other offending. He has two children who still needed his care on his release, they said.
"This is proper for some suspension of sentence. The appeal is allowed and the sentence of 16-years imprisonment is quashed and we impose in its place a sentence of 10-years imprisonment with the final two-years suspended for two-years."