Court of Appeal takes note of Reddit’s criticism
Connor Boyd's killer told the abuse for her short sentence is being directed at the judge, not her.
I read court cases for fun, and while that’s not a fact I open with at parties, sometimes things happen in them that are genuinely quite funny. Usually I’m the only one to get the joke, as I don’t know anyone else who peruses Court of Appeal judgements like they’re the morning paper, but in this case, it’s both amusing to me and quite interesting to note what happened in this case, considering the results of this appeal.
This is the case of two eighteen-year-olds who grabbed Connor Boyd and drove off while holding onto him, causing him to fall from the vehicle and be run over by the rear tyres. The appeal released declines to grant permanent name suppression, meaning both the offenders have now been revealed to be Kaiya Shute and William Grace. Shute’s (declined) appeal also seeks to get her sentence down to under two years.
While it’s funny to read a court summary of a reddit thread you yourself were outraged in, and very satisfying to read this narcissistic and entitled girl be told that no, people saying you should have been charged with murder is not the sort of personal attack that makes you eligible for name suppression — and that most of the outrage wasn’t even at her anyway, it was at the courts. For that, you have to give reddit its kudos; they did focus on the issue at hand enough that the judges could easily and clearly identify that the “excessive” frustration was being directed towards the judiciary and came from repeated short sentences. They even note that the vigilante comments aren’t directed at her personally and are not threats, but are general predictions of what short sentences might result in.
Ms Shute’s arguments for a lighter sentence were not especially convincing, but I’ve read cases before where that hasn’t made a difference to the sentencing judge. While the Court of Appeal notes quite firmly in this case that judges cannot and should not be trying to “reach” predetermined sentences, there have been a lot of accusations of such, and reading some of the sentences that sit at 22 or 23 months, and that avoiding a prison sentence is a specific factor judges consider when deciding them, it does seem that judges will aim the target at “whatever keeps this kid out of jail”.
Being 18 at the time of offending, both defendants sat on the cusp of being eligible for a child’s sentence, and Ms Schute’s lawyer attempts to take this route. But the judges (rightly) draw a line in the sand and emphasise that this is not the case that would make them cross it.
This sentence outcome is still low for what people might consider murder, but it’s a lot higher than what it could have been, and there was a genuine chance that either Schute’s sentencing or her appeal could have seen her receive home detention. In fact Cooke P was in favour of a lower sentence.
While I wouldn’t expect that the reddit comments actually changed the judges’ minds here, if I was Ms Schute’s lawyer, I don’t think I would have presented those reddit screenshots as evidence. Doing so called out the judiciary for weak sentences and must have made the court more aware of the scrutiny and public sentiments behind these cases. The person railing at Gault J who probably never expected their comments to be put before the Court of Appeal may have actually had an influence on these three judges, in this case and in perhaps in others too.
Interesting, isn’t it, how democracy and justice actually play out?