R v Miller [2002] VSC 456

Supreme Court of Victoria|2002-09-23|Before: BONGIORNO J.

CRIMINAL LAW - Sentencing - Plea of guilty - Accessory to murder - Young offender - Agreement to give evidence for the Crown - Released on undertaking to be of good behaviour for three years.

Louise Teresa Miller, you have pleaded guilty to one count of being an accessory after the fact to murder.

On 11 March of this year, you were a witness to the murder of your father by a man with whom you had some form of relationship. He was 41; you were 17. After the death of your father, you told the police a false story which could have had the effect, for a short time at least, of throwing them off the trail which would ultimately lead them to the real offender.

You persisted in this story for a couple of hours before you told the police the truth. It is in telling the story and persisting in it for that time that the essence of this offence lies. It falls at the lower end of seriousness, largely because it was inevitable that your false story would be seen to be so by the police within a very short time. Nonetheless, it does constitute the offence to which you have pleaded guilty and I must sentence you in accordance with the law in respect of that offence.

It is sufficient for the purposes of these sentencing remarks to note that your upbringing has been a hard one. You are one of eight children. Your farther was an African American. You had a difficult and impoverished childhood, brought about not only by the poverty of your parents but also, to some extent at least, by the fact that your father's ethnicity was reflected in behaviour by those around you that was less than praiseworthy. You have reached the age of 17 without any great attainments in education and without so far being able to earn a living.

Your counsel has put forward that you had an idea that you might like to work with cattle, but, having regard to where you presently live and the location of any possible job in that respect, it seems to me to be nothing more than a pious hope that at one time or another you may get such a job.

After your initial lie to the police, you underwent a record of interview in which you told the truth, which led almost immediately to the arrest of the person allegedly responsible for your father's death. Subsequently you made a statement, on 12 March 2002, in which you detailed the circumstances of the offence. It is unnecessary, and perhaps to some extent unwise, to go into them in detail as they are yet to be the subject of the charge brought against the alleged offender, Farrugia.

You have pleaded guilty to this charge and you have given an undertaking to the Court to give evidence, truthful evidence, on Farrugia's committal and, if necessary, his subsequent trial.

You are young. You have no prior convictions; you have not been in trouble with the police before. The law leans towards giving people of your age every possible opportunity not to become entangled in it or to acquire a criminal history which would be held against them in employment and other circumstances.

Mr McArdle of Queen's Counsel, for the Crown, has conceded that there is no need in this case for you to be imprisoned as a result of this offence. Indeed, he has gone further and said a non-conviction situation might well be imposed.

Having heard what your counsel has said and having seen you in the witness box, it seems to me that, taking into account your plea of guilty, your offer to give evidence for the Crown, the fact that you are only 17 and that you have got a lifetime ahead of you, it is appropriate that this Court give you a chance and not send you to gaol or to any form of youth training and, in this instance, not to record a conviction against you.

If you give an undertaking to the Court to be of good behaviour for a period of three years, I am prepared to release you on your own undertaking to so be of good behaviour for three years without recording a conviction.

Are you prepared to give the court an undertaking that you will not get into trouble with the law for three years?

HIS HONOUR: Very well. Then the sentence of the Court is that you be released on your own undertaking to be of good behaviour for a period of three years, and, in effect, to come up for sentence when and if called upon. Louise, you realise that if you commit any offence in those three years, this undertaking can be put into effect and you will be required to come back before the Supreme Court and be dealt with for this very serious offence; you understand that, don't you?

HIS HONOUR: Yes. Very Well. Well, I will record in the records of the Court, in accordance with the Sentencing Act 1991, the fact that the Court has imposed a less severe sentence than it would otherwise have imposed because of an undertaking given by the offender to assist law enforcement authorities in the prosecution of the offence to which she was an accessory after the fact.

At a glance

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Before

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Judgment (17 paragraphs)

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