AI-generated summaries. Not legal advice. Always verify against the official judgment on NSW Caselaw.
← All decisions
Court of Criminal Appeal 23 April 2019

Siale v R

[2019] NSWCCA 80

Homicide
CRIME MURDER MENTAL ELEMENT MURDER SPECIFIC INTENT EFFECT OF INTOXICATION.

Citation: Siale v R [2019] NSWCCA 80
Court: Court of Criminal Appeal, New South Wales
Date: 23 April 2019
Judge(s): Bathurst CJ at [1]; Price J at [65]; Ierace J at [66]

Background

The appellant had been convicted of murder following a jury trial in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in August 2017. The offence arose from an incident in the early hours of 11 October 2015, when the appellant approached the deceased and the deceased's parents outside a block of units in Lakemba. The appellant smashed a glass beer bottle on a nearby brick wall and struck the deceased in the head and neck area on at least two occasions. The deceased died from multiple sharp force injuries, including severed vessels on the left side of his neck.

Evidence at trial established that the appellant had consumed a significant quantity of alcohol in the hours before the incident. His girlfriend estimated he had drunk approximately 16 Corona beers and a substantial quantity of bourbon. Two expert pharmacologists calculated his likely blood alcohol concentration at between 0.23g and 0.38g per 100 millilitres of blood, with both experts agreeing that such a level would cause severe cognitive impairment.

The appellant was sentenced to 24 years imprisonment with a non-parole period of 17 years. He sought leave to appeal against both conviction and sentence, with the sentence appeal contingent on the conviction appeal succeeding and a manslaughter verdict being substituted.

  • Whether it was open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the appellant had the requisite intent to commit murder, given his level of intoxication at the time of the offending.

Decision

The sole ground of appeal was whether the jury could properly find the requisite mental element for murder: that is, an intention to cause grievous bodily harm (meaning serious physical injury) to the deceased. The Court of Criminal Appeal held unanimously that this question was properly one for the jury to resolve on all the evidence.

Bathurst CJ noted that the expert pharmacologists had not reached any concluded view as to whether the appellant's intoxication actually prevented him from forming the necessary intent. That gap in the expert evidence meant the question remained squarely within the jury's province, to be assessed alongside all other evidence, including the experts' opinions about the degree of cognitive impairment.

The Chief Justice identified several features of the appellant's conduct that the jury was entitled to treat as demonstrating intent. The appellant spoke coherently, knew where he was, first broke the bottle before using it as a weapon, moved around the deceased's mother to reach the deceased, and struck the deceased in a particularly vulnerable part of the body. The second strike, delivered after the deceased was already visibly wounded, was described as especially probative of an intention to inflict grievous bodily harm. The jury was also entitled to take into account evidence that the appellant walked normally from the scene in a relatively straight line, as shown by the blood trail.

Price J and Ierace J each delivered brief concurring judgments, independently agreeing that it was open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the requisite intent had been formed.

Orders Made

  • Leave to appeal granted.
  • Appeal dismissed.

Key Takeaways

  • Even where expert evidence establishes severe cognitive impairment from intoxication, a murder conviction is not automatically precluded; where experts express no concluded view on whether intoxication prevented the formation of intent, that question remains one for the jury.
  • A jury is entitled to draw inferences about a defendant's intention from the observable features of their conduct, including the deliberate modification of a weapon, purposeful movement toward a victim, and the targeting of a vulnerable area of the body.
  • In dismissing the appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeal confirmed that the degree to which intoxication negates specific intent is "very much a matter for the jury to determine" on all the evidence, not a matter resolved by expert opinion alone.
  • Post-offence behaviour, such as the manner in which a defendant walked from the scene, is part of the evidence the jury may consider when assessing the extent of intoxication and its effect on capacity to form intent.
  • The sentence appeal did not proceed independently; it was framed as contingent on a successful conviction appeal, and fell away when the conviction was upheld.

Legislation and Cases Referenced

Legislation:
- Crimes Act 1900 (NSW)

Cases:
- Blackwell v The Queen (2011) 81 NSWLR 119; [2011] NSWCCA 93
- Dickson v R (2017) 94 NSWLR 476; [2017] NSWCCA 78
- R v Baden-Clay (2016) 258 CLR 308; [2016] HCA 35
- The Queen v O'Connor (1980) 146 CLR 64