Sentencing Harriet Wran … Media discount … Opportunities for the press to influence custodial outcomes … Justice Ian Harrison’s scrapes with the media … Sentencing parity and the disadvantaged
Justice Ian (Hormones) Harrison has bravely, or recklessly, broken Mark Twain’s cardinal rule, “never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel”.
In sentencing Harriet Wran to what amounts to a further 16 days in prison for robbery in company and accessory after the fact to murder, Hormones had the temerity to criticise the press, in particular the Daily and Sunday Smellographs.
Wran, the daughter of the former NSW Premier, Nifty Neville Wran, had been involved in a disastrous scheme to rob Daniel McNulty, a Redfern drug dealer, which resulted in Wran’s boyfriend, Michael Lee, killing McNulty with a knife.
There was other stuff, such as How I Ended Up in Hell and Daddy’s little girl to ice junkie and even Sex, drug binge after murder.
There were also extracts from Harriet’s letters and phone calls splattered across the pages of the tissues.
In his sentencing remarks, Hormones said this exposure was prurient and disproportionate to her involvement in the crimes.
“In my opinion the publication of these egregious articles warrants the imposition of a sentence that takes account of Ms Wran’s continuing exposure to the risk of custodial retribution, the unavoidable spectre of enduring damage to her reputation and an impeded recovery from her ongoing mental health and drug related problems.”
In other words, a media discount. This could be a breakthrough moment, where sentences are fitted to reflect remarks in the press about a prisoner. Glowing newspaper tributes about crims could conceivably produce longer sentences because of extra curial praise. The press might even be able to tailor favourable sentencing outcomes for tabloid heroes with a few pages of smear and innuendo.
The Sunday Tele struck back with an editorial, saying that no judge is going to push us around, that its reports have been fair and accurate and there has been no campaign.
“We stand by our reporting and the presentation of that reporting and … we do not believe it is the court’s role to consider questions of media taste.”
“The judge who slashed Harriet Wran’s accessory to murder sentence claiming publicity had damaged her reputation believes most jail terms are too long, causing many criminals to suffer too much.”
It was drawn from a 2008 speech Hormones delivered to a sentencing conference.
He questioned the length of incarceration, saying that if we “took a red pen to all sentences and cut them in half”, it probably wouldn’t make much difference. So as to be entirely uncontroversial, he excluded psychopathic and dangerous recidivists from consideration.
This was not much of an “exclusive”, because the judge had mentioned these views in his sentencing reasons.
Hormones got the last say, squelching the newspapers’ application, in the interests of “open justice”, to get hold of copies of the references or testimonials provided to the court on Wran’s behalf. An alternative application was made for just the names of those who vouched for her.
Harrison knocked that back in five pages. In view of the racy stuff already published about Harriet, the Tele could not be “trusted” to do the right thing, particularly when it is remembered how referees for former crown prosecutor Patrick Power got a good going over in a couple of tabloid articles, including Pervert and his 59 mates.
The NSW Bar Association even tried to have the newspaper punished for contempt.
“The Daily Telegraph has form and was not entitled to the benefit of any doubt suggesting that it would not resort to the equivalent journalistic standards employed on a previous occasion if given the chance.”
There was a follow-up application by The Australian on Friday, July 29. Again, it was deemed too risky to let the reptiles anywhere near the solid citizens who vouched for Ms Wran.
This is not the first time Harrison has gone into battle against the press. In 2005, when president of the bar n’ grill, he responded to a Telegraph story about snoozing District Court judge Ian Dodd, Justice Jeff Shaw who had drinking problems, and Vince Bruce, also of the Supreme Court, who was slow with his judgments because of depression.
The headline was “Dozy, Drunk, Depressed”, which Harrison said was “just plain wicked … Are all members of the community suffering from these illnesses to be treated callously?”
It got even more serious when he wanted Alan (Dunny) Jones charged with contempt after the shocker-jock described evidence to an inquiry by Bob Carr’s chief of staff, Graeme Wedderburn, as “a complete disaster … you believe Wedderburn’s evidence, you’ll believe anything”.
“You may be taller and more handsome than Justice Hammerschlawg, but he is too fawst for you, wasn’t I?”
He told the court at the ceremony of his difficulty getting started as a barrister:
Harriet Wran was sentenced to one year for harbouring, maintaining and assisting Michael Lee after Daniel McNulty’s death and for robbery in company she got four years, commencing August 13, 2014 and expiring on August 12, 2018, with a non-parole period of two years, expiring on August 12, 2016.
Wran had been in prison for nearly two years, pending trial.
There’s been Phillip Street speculation whether an Indigenous offender or a disadvantaged citizen from the western suburbs, who faced similar circumstances, would have received a comparable sentence.