NZBA-sponsored Student Sentencing Competition 2022

Hart Reynolds*

The Auckland High Court clerks held the annual Sentencing Competition over four nights in September, culminating in the final held on the night of 28 September 2022 in Courtroom 1 presided over by Duffy J. Marcus Mackenzie from AUT won the competition and Campbell Walker from the University of Auckland was the runner up.

Sponsored by the New Zealand Bar Association | Ngā Ahorangi Motuhake o te Ture and the Ministry of Justice, the competition gives 20 law students from the University of Auckland, AUT and the University of Waikato the opportunity to make submissions in a fictional sentencing hearing before High Court judges. Most rounds were held in-person this year at the Auckland High Court, which was a great change after the last few COVID-addled years.

As one of the only criminal law-based competitions available during law school, law students are provided an opportunity to learn how the sentencing process works and to develop their advocacy skills. Each round of the competition featured a different fictional offender charged with different offences. Competitors this year had to apply Taueki v R to a case where a man chopped off the finger of a home intruder, apply the new guideline judgment on strangulation in Shramka v R, and make totality arguments for offending related to a ramraid.

It was a privilege to have Rachael Reed KC representing the Bar Association at the final. She spoke to students in attendance about the importance of advocacy, particularly in sentencing, and the value of competitions such as this. Support from the Bar Association in the form of monetary prizes for the winner and runner up and funding the function after the final ensures that participation in this competition is a sought after endeavour – more than double the number of students applied than we had space for.

We would like to sincerely thank John Richardson and Ching Zhou for their help, the court security guards for working after hours, and the judges for giving up their time to judge the competition: Justices Walker, Gordon, Robinson, Tahana, Harvey, Lang, Gault and Duffy.

*Hart Reynolds is a Judges Clerk at the Auckland High Court