High Court judge praises student performances at Sentencing Advocacy Competition

Justice David Johnstone recently presided over the final round of the annual Sentencing Advocacy Competition, which took place this year in Courtroom 1 of the Auckland High Court. The judge called the performances of the finalists “truly excellent.”

Numerous clerks of the High Court’s judges organised the event on 1 October. The Ministry of Justice and the New Zealand Bar Association sponsored the competition, where Blake Storrier was announced as winner and Charlie Harmer as runner-up. Both students were from the University of Auckland.

The final round involved a fictitious defendant facing a manslaughter conviction following a work hunting trip gone wrong. The round required the finalists to contend with issues of intoxication, addiction, a guilty plea at trial, and the effects of the case on the defendant’s two children.

Rachael Reed, an elected council member of the bar association, represented the organisation at the event and presented the certificates to the finalists. In front of the attendees, she spoke of a courtroom’s usual atmosphere at sentencing and of the challenge of making submissions in a case such as this, according to the bar association’s news release.

“We would like to thank the Bar Association for their sponsorship, which provides for the prize money, the post-final function, and the associated costs of University of Waikato students travelling up to Auckland for the semi-final and/or final,” said Monique Pitt, judges’ clerk, in the news release.

Competition rounds

This annual criminal law competition aims to teach students at the University of Auckland, Auckland University of Technology, and the University of Waikato more about the sentencing process and the advocacy skills needed when litigating before the High Court.

The preliminary round required 20 students to make submissions for a defendant convicted of wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. On the other hand, the semi-final asked the remaining competitors to provide submissions for a defendant facing a conviction of dishonest use of a document with intent to obtain pecuniary advantage.

In each round, the students had to “appear” before the High Court’s participating judges to make their submissions for either the Crown or for the defence.

In the news release, Pitt expressed gratitude for “all the staff at the Auckland High Court who assisted, and the Judges who gave their time and invaluable advice to the competitors: Anderson, Becroft, Campbell, O’Gorman and Robinson JJ in the preliminaries; Tahana and Wilkinson-Smith JJ in the semi-finals; and Johnstone J in the final.”