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Court of Appeal of New Zealand |
Last Updated: 1 June 2006
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL OF NEW ZEALAND
THE
QUEEN
v
GLEN
DALLAS GOLDBERG
Hearing: 15 and 16 March 2006
Court: Chambers, Ronald Young and Allan JJ
Counsel: P H H Tomlinson for Appellant
S N Haszard for Crown
Judgment: 4 May 2006 at 10 am
REASONS
(Given by Chambers J)
Table of Contents
Para No
Attempting to pervert the course of justice [1]
Issues on the appeal [7]
Mr Goldberg’s instructions to Mr
Kaye [11]
Mr Goldberg’s
evidence [13]
Ms Cox’s
evidence [19]
Mr Kaye’s
evidence [20]
Mr Leabourn’s
evidence [22]
Mr Lawry’s
evidence [29]
Analysis of the
evidence [30]
Sentence [38]
Total sentence manifestly
excessive? [43]
The MPI [56]
Allowance for time spent on remand [61]
Attempting to pervert the course of justice
Issues on the appeal
I never gave instructions for these letters to be handed to the Crown or the police. I did seek some investigation be done by private investigators. I never wanted them handed to the Crown or to the police.
[8] Mr Tomlinson, who appeared for Mr Goldberg on this appeal, submitted that Mr Kaye’s actions in handing the January letters over to the Crown were in breach of his instructions and in breach of his obligations to maintain client privilege. This led, he submitted, to a miscarriage of justice. Mr Kaye denies that he breached his instructions. The issue, therefore, is the nature of Mr Goldberg’s instructions to Mr Kaye. [9] Mr Tomlinson raised three issues on the appeal against sentence. First, he submitted that the overall sentence of six years’ imprisonment was manifestly excessive. Secondly, he submitted that this was not an appropriate case for the imposition of a minimum period of imprisonment (an "MPI"). Thirdly, he submitted that the judge should have given a concession for the time Mr Goldberg spent on remand with respect to the rape charge. [10] We shall consider the issues in turn.
Mr Goldberg’s instructions to Mr Kaye
[11] It is perhaps helpful if we begin with a chronology:
November 2002
|
Alleged rape of complainant
|
13 October 2003
|
Trial 1, resulting in a hung jury. Appellant remanded in custody to await
new trial.
|
23 December 2003-9 January 2004
|
Mr Goldberg sends two letters to a woman, asking her to give false evidence
with respect to his retrial and offering a financial reward
for such evidence.
These two letters subsequently form the basis of counts 2 and 3 in the
indictment.
|
January 2004
|
Mr Goldberg hands the January letters to Ms Cox.
|
8 March 2004
|
Trial 2 of the rape charge, also resulting in a hung jury.
|
19 March 2004
|
New charges laid with respect to the various attempts to pervert the course
of justice.
|
July 2004
|
Trial 3, relating to the new charges. Appellant found guilty on all
charges bar one.
|
12 October 2004
|
The Auckland Crown Solicitor writes to the Solicitor-General with a view to
his ordering a stay on the rape charge; stay subsequently
granted.
|
30 November 2004
|
Appellant sentenced to six years’ imprisonment.
|
[12] Mr Goldberg waived privilege with respect to his dealings with Mr Kaye and Mr Leabourn, who was Mr Goldberg’s counsel not only in trial 3 but also in trial 2. (Mr Kaye ended up being unable to represent Mr Goldberg in trial 2 owing to other commitments; he handed the brief on to Mr Leabourn.) With respect to the appeal against conviction, the Crown initially filed affidavits by Ms Cox and Messrs Kaye and Lawry. (The last prosecuted for the Crown in trials 1 and 2.) All deponents except Mr Lawry were cross-examined.
Mr Goldberg’s evidence
What did you expect [Mr Kaye] to do with the letters?...Hold on to them. I had no other instructions but to hold on to them.
Presumably, Mr Goldberg, you wanted him to use them to assist you in your defence?...I did not instruct the use of them in my case at all.
Your instructions at that time you gave Deborah Cox the letters, you wanted Mr Kaye to use them in your defence, didn’t you?...Not in my court case, no.
So far as you were concerned, they didn’t have any particular relevance to the court case that was coming up?...No.
So exactly what was the point then in handing the letters on if they had no relevance?...I wanted Peter Kaye to have a bit more input into my case. I felt that I wasn’t really getting the help that I needed.
[14] Later in cross-examination Mr Goldberg was asked whether he wanted Mr Kaye to show the January letters to a private investigator. Mr Goldberg answered, "It wasn’t my instructions to show them to an investigator, no." That was, of course, contrary to what he had said in his affidavit. [15] Mr Haszard, for the Crown on this appeal, asked Mr Goldberg what he believed the provenance of the January letters to be. Mr Goldberg said that the January letters had in fact been sent to him and received by him. But he said that he had never believed the letters had been written by the complainant; he said that he thought the letters had been sent to him by "associates". In light of his admission that he had never believed the letters to be genuine, he was asked, "Well, in that event, what possible relevance could they have had to your case?" He answered, "None whatsoever." [16] Mr Goldberg said that he first found out that the Crown had the January letters on the first morning of trial 2. He said that he "was shocked" to find that the Crown had the letters. He said that he had expressed that shock to Mr Leabourn "several times". He said that he had told Mr Leabourn that he had never instructed Mr Kaye to pass the letters on. [17] Mr Goldberg accepted that he had never discussed with Mr Leabourn any challenge to the January letters coming into evidence in trial 3. It was put to Mr Goldberg that an explanation for Mr Leabourn’s lack of challenge to the admissibility of the January letters in trial 3 might be that he had never discussed the "alleged wrongful acts of Mr Kaye" with Mr Leabourn until after his conviction in trial 3. Mr Goldberg disagreed with that proposition. He said:
No, [Mr Leabourn] knew prior to the trial because I instructed him to call Peter Kaye and Deborah Cox in regards to the departing of those documents.
How then did Deborah Cox’s evidence come in by consent at [trial 3]?...Hugh [Leabourn] said that he couldn’t examine his own people in his employ or his business partner because it would be a conflict of interest, and he said that the affidavit of Ms Cox was very brief and it will be presented as a hand up and that’s what I consented to, was it being a hand up.
[18] After Mr Goldberg had completed his evidence, it seemed to the bench that Mr Goldberg’s complaint was not just about Mr Kaye; if Mr Goldberg’s account were true, then Mr Leabourn had failed properly to protect Mr Goldberg’s interests in trial 3 by failing to challenge the admissibility of evidence relating to the January letters and by failing to call Mr Kaye (whether on a voir dire or in the trial itself). We pointed this out to Mr Tomlinson, who agreed, on further reflection, that the complaint also involved Mr Leabourn. Counsel then agreed that it would be necessary for us to hear from Mr Leabourn as well. We reconvened on 16 March. Overnight Mr Leabourn prepared an affidavit. He was then cross-examined on 16 March.
Ms Cox’s evidence
Mr Kaye’s evidence
[20] Mr Kaye’s evidence was in complete contrast to Mr Goldberg’s. He said that, before he gave the letters to the Crown, he had discussed with Mr Goldberg the wisdom of that course. Mr Kaye said:
I do recall a conversation [with Mr Goldberg] about whether or not he was sure the letters should go to the prosecution or I recall discussing briefly with him whether we should sit on them and use them in cross-examination, for example. But he was always very clear to me that those letters were to go to the prosecution because he did not want this matter [the rape charge] to go to court and that was said more than once.
[21] We had the following exchange with Mr Kaye:
When you had the discussions with Mr Goldberg about the letters, or it may have been at that stage the letter, I’m not sure which, and what you were to do with it or them, did he lead you to believe that the letter or letters were genuine?...Yes, definitely.
So that their purpose so far as you were aware was possible use against the complainant at the trial or to put the trial off altogether?...To persuade the prosecution to drop the case so that the trial would not proceed. He did not want to go to court.
Mr Leabourn’s evidence
[7] Mr Kaye also advised me that the Crown had given an undertaking that any findings in respect of these documents would be communicated prior to the trial commencing so that instructions could be taken as to the use of the documents. It was always my impression that the documents had been passed on to the Crown at the request of Mr Goldberg so that the complainant’s credibility would be undermined and the trial would not proceed at all.
[8] On my first meeting with Mr Goldberg at the Auckland Central Remand Prison I remember him asking me about the letters and what the police reaction was in relation to them. I gained the impression from him that he believed the existence of these letters would result in a quick termination of the proceedings and that the trial would not go ahead. I explained to him at the time that the letters were with the Crown and that the Crown had given an assurance that we would receive a report prior to the trial as to the result of their investigation. Mr Goldberg was happy with this explanation.
[23] Mr Lawry showed Mr Leabourn the result of the police investigation into the January letters on the morning of the first day of trial 2. Mr Leabourn said that the findings were "far from conclusive". Mr Leabourn formed the view that "it would not be useful...to use these letters". He discussed that strategy with Mr Goldberg. Mr Goldberg agreed with that tactic. Mr Leabourn then reached an agreement with Mr Lawry that the existence of the letters would not be mentioned during the course of the trial unless they were raised by the defence. As it turned out, the January letters were not referred to at all during trial 2. [24] Mr Goldberg retained Mr Leabourn after he was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice. Mr Leabourn said that, while he did receive instructions from Mr Goldberg to challenge certain proposed evidence, which instructions he carried out, he never received instructions to challenge the admissibility of the January letters. He said that he did not bring an application to challenge their admissibility as his instructions were "the letters had been legitimately received by Mr Goldberg through the prison system and he had no part in the preparation or authorship". [25] He said that Mr Goldberg’s position was "that the letters had been written by someone other than himself, he had received them through the post and that his position was that they had been signed by friends of the complainant or a member of his own family". Mr Leabourn said that his instructions were "to challenge the Crown contention that the use of them was an attempt to pervert the course of justice and that Mr Goldberg had simply passed them on to the Crown through Mr Kaye to allow the opportunity for them to be investigated". [26] Mr Leabourn said that "at a point late in the trial" Mr Goldberg changed his instructions. Mr Leabourn, in his affidavit, goes on:
[Mr Goldberg] then advised me he had never instructed Mr Kaye to pass those documents on to the police [and] that he had simply...given them to be placed on the file. By this stage the evidence of the Crown had been called. I had put the defence case to the witnesses and I was in a difficult position given the change in instructions. When I explained this to Mr Goldberg I also explained that his position was that he disputed that he had created them; therefore that was the approach that would be put before the jury. Mr Goldberg seemed to accept my position in relation to that and I was able to continue running the trial.
[27] In cross-examination, Mr Leabourn said that when he had first met Mr Goldberg Mr Goldberg was "interested to know what the police reaction was to the existence of [the January letters] now that they were aware of them". He told Mr Leabourn that he hoped that the January letters "might result in the trial itself not happening because the letters demonstrated some antipathy or some bias or inaccuracy in their [the complainant’s] evidence". [28] During cross-examination, Mr Tomlinson put to Mr Leabourn a letter Mr Goldberg had written to Mr Leabourn. The letter is undated, but contains a date stamp showing "received 21/4/04". This would have been, therefore, after trial 2 and after the new charges had been laid with respect to the various attempts to pervert the course of justice. In the course of that letter, Mr Goldberg had said:
The threatening letters were given to Deborah, not the police like they said. I never asked for the police to collect them but asked Deborah to find out if the prosecution witnesses done them.
Mr Lawry’s evidence
Analysis of the evidence
Sentence
The net result is that you are sentenced to an effective total sentence of six years’ imprisonment, of which four years is subject to a minimum period of imprisonment of 32 months.
[41] Although the judge did not expressly so state, it is to be assumed that the sentences on the protection order charges were to carry the standard statutory non-parole periods of one-third i.e. eight months. What it appears the judge therefore intended is a minimum period of imprisonment of 40 months, 32 months being a s 86 MPI and the remaining eight months being the statutory one-third. [42] We now turn to the three criticisms of the sentence advanced by Mr Tomlinson.
Total sentence manifestly excessive?
(a) R v Williams [1997] 2 Cr App R (S) 221: two years’ imprisonment upheld for writing a threatening letter to a witness from prison;
(b) R v Edmonds [1999] 1 Cr App R (S) 475: the Court of Appeal imposed a sentence of three years’ imprisonment on a man who threatened violence towards a young woman who had reported him to the police and damaged her property.
[54] We are also not persuaded that the total sentence of six years’ imprisonment was outside the available range. This was very serious offending involving three different victims – two of whom were very young women. The attempts to pervert the course of justice were made by a man who has an appalling record of harassing others and who has in the past, in like manner, attempted to pervert the course of justice. [55] The appeal against the nominal sentence must fail.
The MPI
[56] The correct section was the original s 86: Hall’s Sentencing (looseleaf ed) at [SA86.1A(b)] and R v Chadderton [2004] NZCA 295; (2004) 21 CRNZ 566 (CA). (Chadderton was decided after the sentencing in this case.) [57] Mr Tomlinson submitted that the judge had been wrong to impose an MPI; the facts of this offending, in Mr Tomlinson’s submission, were not out of the ordinary. The standard statutory MPI of one-third (two years) should have applied. [58] The judge correctly applied the criteria of the original s 86. He concluded that the circumstances of the PCJ offending were sufficiently serious to justify an MPI longer than the standard one-third. He considered that the circumstances took the offending "out of the ordinary range of offending of a particular kind". He thought the offending to be "in a quite unique category", when viewed against all the background circumstances. That view was open to the judge. We do not regard this offending as being other than extremely serious of its type. [59] We decline to interfere with the judge’s MPI order. Mr Tomlinson has not established that the judge misapplied the test or has otherwise exercised his discretion in a plainly wrong manner. [60] For the avoidance of doubt, we confirm that the non-parole period for the sentences on the PCJ charges is 32 months, pursuant to s 86(1) of the Sentencing Act. The non-parole period for the sentences on the protection order charges is eight months, pursuant to s 84(5)(a) of the Parole Act 2002. The non-parole period of the total sentence of six years’ imprisonment ("a long-term notional single sentence") is the total of those two non-parole periods, namely 40 months’ imprisonment: see s 84(4) of the Parole Act.
Allowance for time spent on remand
...I have concluded after some considerable thought that you should not be entitled to any concession in this regard. The remand in custody was assessed on the merits applying at that time, notwithstanding that, eventually, you were acquitted. I do not see that the consequences which followed from that should be imported into the considerations involved in the present sentencing.
[62] It is apparent that Laurenson J thought that Mr Goldberg was eventually acquitted on the rape charge. This erroneous view was repeated by Mr Tomlinson in his written submissions. Mr Goldberg was not acquitted: the jury in trial 2, like the jury in trial 1, were not able to agree. The Solicitor-General ultimately entered a stay in respect of the rape charge, but only after the present case had been determined. One can surmise that Laurenson J’s rejection of Mr Leabourn’s submission would have been all the more forceful had he correctly understood the fate of the rape charge. [63] On appeal before us, Mr Tomlinson repeated Mr Leabourn’s submission. He submitted that it seemed "particularly unfair not to take into account remand time when the matters are related,... particularly...when a person is acquitted of the principal charge for which he [was] on remand". [64] Like Laurenson J, we do not accept this submission, for which no authority was cited. In effect, Mr Tomlinson’s submission amounts to a proposition that, if an offender is remanded in custody on a charge on which he is not ultimately convicted, the time spent on remand becomes a deposit in that offender’s sentencing bank, a deposit on which the offender is later entitled to draw in reduction of the debt he later incurs to society as a consequence of further offending. Such a proposition has no legislative, judicial, or philosophical basis. [65] There will be many people who spend time on remand and who are subsequently acquitted. It has never been suggested that they can call on that remand time to reduce a subsequent sentence. The claim for such reduction is all the weaker where the offender was not acquitted but the jury was hung. In some ways Mr Goldberg has been lucky: the Solicitor-General determined that he should not have to face a third trial on the rape charge. [66] The appropriate remedy for those who have wrongly spent time in prison and who later establish their innocence is compensation pursuant to the Government’s scheme for ex gratia payments for wrongful convictions. Mr Goldberg, having never been acquitted on the rape charge and having never established his innocence on that charge, is clearly not entitled to compensation for the five months spent on remand in relation to the rape charge. [67] Of course, Mr Goldberg is automatically entitled to credit for the time spent on remand from the date on which the PCJ charges were laid. [68] In summary, therefore, we agree with Laurenson J that no reduction was required with respect to the October 2003-March 2004 remand period. [69] All challenges on sentence fail, with the consequence that the appeal against sentence must also be dismissed.
Solicitors:
Peter H H Tomlinson,
Auckland, for Appellant
Crown Law Office, Wellington
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