Addendum: Tuesday August 23rd, 2016

Yesterday was the sentencing of Tyrone Palmer in the high court in Invercargill. Unfortunately my brother Graeme and his wife Yoshiko couldn’t make it (because Yoshiko is about to go into surgery) but I read Graeme’s victim impact statement, along with my own, and Mum and Dad read theirs.

We walked up to the front of the court and stood together in solidarity for Matt and shared our pain; of the experience of his death, our loss of Matt and all of his potential that was about to be realized, as well as our incredulousness at this unprovoked and seemingly senseless act of violence. We also addressed the clear need for Tyrone’s rehabilitation in the hope that he will never be the cause of something like this again.

Tyrone was sentenced to 22 months in custody, which now that he’s 17 years old could mean (as one policeman calls it), “Big Boys Prison” but will likely mean an under-20’s youth custody facility.



Instinctively, twenty-two months for a life seems somewhat lame but compared with the very real possibility discussed in court of home detention instead of custody, it’s reasonable. From the perspective of New Zealand law, the starting point was four years, which is the general term for a manslaughter of this kind in New Zealand. He got 25% off for his age, 25% off for pleading guilty, and another couple of months off because New Zealand prisons are a rough place for a youngster.

No-one would disagree with the twenty-five percent off for his age. He was 16 at the time and as the defendant’s lawyer pleaded, his brain isn’t fully developed yet. Everyone gets that. His lawyer also claimed leniency because he’d been bullied at school. It’s a well-researched fact that kids who are bullied often become bullies and certainly his behaviour on that fateful night seemed typical of a bully, and although he claimed he was defending his girlfriends, they too seemed to be displaying bullying behaviour towards Matt.

The twenty-five percent off for pleading guilty is standard practice, but to be honest I don’t get that. In this situation (and many others) where the defendant has obviously committed the crime (there were numerous witnesses and he’d told someone he’d done it with his “I’ve just King-hit someone” comment as he fled), it seems a hollow and excessive reward. I understand it in situations where it’s not clear who, why or how a crime was committed, but not in this instance. I suspect that rewarding criminals with reduced sentences for pleading guilty has become a commonly accepted practice in New Zealand criminal law (regardless of the obviousness of the guilt), more for economic rather than ethical or judicial reasons. By pleading guilty it saves the expense of a trial. Perhaps it also saves the extended heart-wrenching trauma of a trial for a victim’s family but I still don’t understand why the reward for pleading guilty in these instances needs to be so high.

The couple of months off because NZ prisons are so rough is much more understandable to me and if I were the judge and had free reign over the sentencing I’d replace the 25% off for pleading guilty with that rationale. However, *if* NZ prisons were not such rough places, and NZ Corrections were highly effective at rehabilitating criminals and reducing re-offense rates, that rationale wouldn’t apply, would it?

So the starting point was four years for manslaughter and Tyrone ended up with 22 months of going into a situation where the prospects of his rehabilitation are dubious. What if the starting point were 8 years, as it is in New South Wales for cowardly one-punch deaths? And what if NZ Corrections had a powerful rehabilitation program and NZ prisons were not places where a 17-year-old might be bullied, abused and traumatized, or taught how to become a “better” criminal and were more like Norway's prisons? Then four years for the crime of killing a defenseless man in an unprovoked attack would make sense. Sure, he’d lose the freedom of his remaining teenage years, but to me, that’s exactly what he deserves for taking my brother’s life.

Perhaps what was most unexpected from the judge was his focus on the concoction of LSD, cannabis and alcohol that Tyrone was on that night. He referred to it a couple of times and said he found it deeply troubling. So did I, but the police had always assured me that it wasn’t all that relevant; in a court of law it was neither a mitigating nor an aggravating factor (or rather, they canceled each other out). But when I did even a little research on it I found that the combination of LSD and alcohol could lead to potentially extreme behaviour that could cause damage both to the person on the concoction and anyone in his or her path. You’d think the cannabis might soften the potential for aggressive behaviour but in this instance it didn’t. So the judge’s instinct about this was correct but it doesn’t seem to be a widely recognized issue in New Zealand, or a valid concern in criminal law – yet.

Finally, Tyrone had written a brief letter of apology to Mum and Dad which seemed to express remorse, and the judge referred a couple of times to reports from a psychiatric nurse that he was actually expressing true remorse. Whether or not he’d been encouraged to write the letter and express some kind of remorse by his family, lawyer or psych nurse it seemed a like a good starting point, and the possibility of restorative justice at some point, where we get to meet him in person could be a good opportunity for healing all round.