Convicted murderer Shane Pierre Harrison faces spending life in jail without parole if his sentence is overturned.

Two murderers face becoming New Zealand's first criminals jailed for the rest of their lives after an historic appeal of the three strikes law.

The lawyers of Shane Pierre Harrison and Justin Vance Turner had successfully argued such a tough sentence was unfair in the men's cases, even though criminals with first strike convictions who later committed murders could be jailed for life without parole.

However, the Crown has appealed their sentences, claiming the High Court judges were wrong to fail to jail the two killers for life without parole.

Harrison jointly murdered Alonsio (Sio) Matalasi during a gang confrontation in Petone, Lower Hutt, in August 2013. Turner who bashed and stomped to death a fellow homeless man, Maqbool Hussain, in Auckland in March 2014.

Harrison's first strike offence was for pinching a policewoman's bottom and brushing his hand across her groin and thighs in 2011.

At his October 2014 sentencing for murder, Justice Jill Mallon said Harrison's indecent assault conviction was "relatively minor" and while it could trigger life imprisonment without parole, that was "an entirely disproportionate response".

"It would be manifestly unjust and is the kind of unfair case that Parliament has recognised can arise in providing the judge with the discretion," she said in the High Court in Wellington.

She sentenced him to life in jail with a 13-year minimum non-parole period.

Alonsio Matalasi's father, Iafeta Matalasi, had pleaded to Justice Mallon to free Harrison and co-offender Dillin Pakai so they could learn to live "with compassion", saying he had forgiven them and felt for their children, who would grow up without them.

On Thursday , Matalasi said he was unable to comment on the Court of Appeal case until after it was heard in Wellington on October 20.

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Harrison had a manslaughter conviction from 1987 when, as a 17-year-old, he was jailed for six years for his part in tying up and torturing a victim of "gang discipline", but that was before the three strikes law existed.

When sentencing Turner in February, Justice Mark Woolford said the 29-year-old could spend as long as 59 years behind bars before he died, which Turner's lawyer argued was "disproportionately severe".

"At his age, this is a sentence of between 45 and 55 years according to defence calculations, and 59 years according to the average life expectancy assessments of Statistics New Zealand," the judge said in the High Court in Auckland.

Instead, he sentenced Turner to life imprisonment with a 15-year minimum non-parole period.

Turner's first strike conviction was for wounding with intent after hitting a female acquaintance in the head several times in 2011, causing traumatic brain injuries. She required life support when admitted to Auckland Hospital and needed ongoing, serious rehabilitative treatment.

Sensible Sentencing Trust founder Garth McVicar said he believed no judge wanted to be first to send someone to jail without hope of release, so the Court of Appeal was the best way to clarify the law's "manifestly unjust" provisions.

"Once we've crossed this hurdle of giving a life without parole sentence, which we are hoping this appeal will do, we are hoping the judges won't be so reluctant to go there again.

"We don't want to capture the 'milk bottle thieves'. We want to capture the worst of the worst."

Three Strikes Law Turns Five

In the five years since the three strikes law was introduced, 81 repeat violent criminals have received final warnings that they risk being sent to jail forever if they violently reoffend.

None had gained their third strike.

A further 5422 offenders had been given their first strike under the 2010 Sentencing and Parole Reform Act, which was introduced in June 2010 to give tough new consequences to repeat serious violent offenders.

Corrections Department statistics, released under the Official Information Act, showed in the five years before the law was brought in, 256 criminals were convicted of a second or subsequent violent offence that would have fallen under the three strikes law.

Victims' lobby group Sensible Sentencing Trust, which backed the law, believed the figures showed it was working as an effective deterrent to reoffending.

"It's primary purpose was to incarcerate the bad guys, but being a deterrence of others is a bonus," said the trust's lawyer, David Garrett, the former ACT politician who promoted the three strikes law's introduction while in Parliament.

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