(1) Mitigating factors
are factors which, in the court’s opinion, decrease the culpability of
the offender or decrease the extent to which the offender should be punished.
(2) The possibility
that an order might be made in respect of the offender under the
High Risk Serious Offenders Act 2020 is not a mitigating factor.
(3) The fact that
criminal property confiscation has occurred or may occur is not a mitigating
factor.
(3a) However, except
in the case of derived property, facilitation by the offender of criminal
property confiscation is a mitigating factor.
(3B) The following are
not mitigating factors —
(a) the
fact that an exclusion order (as defined in the Liquor Control Act 1988
section 152NC) might be or has been made in respect of the offender, or the
consequences for the offender of the order being made;
(b) the
fact that the offender is or will be an excluded offender (as defined in the
Liquor Control Act 1988 section 152NZJ(2)), or the consequences for the
offender of being an excluded offender under that Act.
(4) If because of a
mitigating factor a court reduces the sentence it would otherwise have imposed
on an offender, the court must state that fact in open court.
(5) If because an
offender undertakes to assist law enforcement authorities a court reduces the
sentence it would otherwise have imposed on the offender, the court must state
that fact and the extent of the reduction in open court.
(6) In this section
—
criminal property confiscation means —
(a)
confiscation of derived property or any other property under section 6, 7 or 8
of the Criminal Property Confiscation Act 2000 ; or
(b)
confiscation or forfeiture to the State of derived property under any other
written law;
derived property means property derived or
realised, directly or indirectly, by the offender, or that is subject to the
effective control of the offender, as a result of the commission of the
offence.
[Section 8 amended: No. 29 of 1998 s. 15; No. 26
of 2004 s. 7; No. 41 of 2006 s. 71(1) and 79; No. 42 of 2012 s. 3; No. 17 of
2016 s. 54; No. 29 of 2020 s. 121; No. 44 of 2022 s. 24.]