Possessing Dangerous Drugs VII

Offences:                          Possessing Dangerous Drugs Commercial over 120 grams

Court:                                Mackay Supreme Court

Solicitor:                           Mark Williams

Overview:

Our client was charged with possessing (in total) over 120 grams of pure methylamphetamine, MDMA (ecstasy), cocaine and cannabis.  Our client was remanded into custody as his criminal history was very significant and contained many previous entries for drug offences.  Despite, being in custody, our Mr Mark Williams arranged for our client to undergo a large amount of intensive drug rehabilitation by liaising with the prison and corrective services.  This was important at the sentence because the court looks very favourably at rehabilitation.  The reason the court does this is to determine what future risk of committing further offences the person will have.  The reasoning behind this is that if the court is persuaded (by the lawyers) to impose a lenient sentence which allows the person an early release, the court needs to be satisfied that the risk of committing further offences is reduced, albeit down to a low level.  One way to demonstrate this is by intensive rehabilitation.

At sentence, the Crown Prosecutor suggested a head sentence of 8 years was appropriate however we argued that 5.5 to 6 years was the better range.  We tendered a number of Court of Appeal decisions supporting our sentencing range. Ultimately the court imposed a head sentence of 6 years with parole eligibility after serving 2.5 years.  This is significantly less than the traditional one-third discount despite a significant criminal history. The court made special mention of the significant rehabilitation efforts our client had undertaken while in custody.

WARNING:

This is a summary of an actual case. Details have been omitted to protect the privacy of our client. We select cases which are informative and no guarantee is provided that similar results are achievable in all cases. Every case is different and you should obtain legal advice specific to your matter and circumstances.