R v Hines (No.3) [2014] NSWSC 1273

• Details of offender’s itinerant background given through family members – at times lived in extremely poor living conditions causing Sentencing Judge to ‘… pause to note that the housing conditions that I am describing existed in a first world country in the late 1970s and early 1980s’ – exposed to alcohol and physical abuse – background resulted in early drug abuse, lack of education and limited employment – ‘goes a very long way to explaining how it is that the offender came to spend a large amount of his late adolescence appearing before the Children’s Court’: at [55]-[61]
• Background gave rise to application of Bugmy and Munda in ‘stark and distressing way’: at [62]

[64] I accept that the offender’s personal history of social deprivation and early exposure to alcohol and violence explains to a significant degree his criminal history and the unfortunate path that his life has taken. The public, fully apprised of the circumstances, would understand that he is not an ideal vehicle through whom to send messages of general deterrence.

Quoted Munda v Western Australia [2013] HCA 38; (2013) 249 CLR 600 at [55]

• It may be argued that general deterrence has little rational claim upon the sentencing discretion in relation to crimes which are not premeditated. That argument has special force where prolonged and widespread social disadvantage has produced communities so demoralised or alienated that it is unreasonable to expect the conduct of individuals within those communities to be controlled by rational calculation of the consequences of misconduct. In such cases it may be said that heavy sentences are likely to be of little utility in reducing the general incidence of crimes, especially crimes of passion.
• Subjective mitigating factors balanced with consideration of dangerousness of offender and protection of community in view of criminal record for murder and violent offences: at [66]