Regina v Juanita Leslie Schoultz [2007] NSWSC 809

New South Wales Supreme Court

CITATION : Regina v Juanita Leslie Schoultz [2007] NSWSC 809

HEARING DATE(S) : 23 March 2007, 13 July 2007

JUDGMENT DATE : 27 July 2007

JUDGMENT OF : Barr J at 1

DECISION : The offender is sentenced to a non-parole period of three and one-half years, commencing on 21 June 2005 and expiring on 20 December 2008 and to a balance of sentence of three and one-half years, expiring on 20 June 2012. The first day upon which she will become eligible for release on parole will be 20 December 2008.

PARTIES : Regina Juanita Leslie Schoultz

FILE NUMBER(S) : SC 2006/896

COUNSEL : M Cunneen P Young SC

SOLICITORS : S Kavanagh Nick Boyden Lawyers

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COMMON LAW DIVISION

GRAHAM BARR J

27 JULY 2007

2006/896 REGINA v JUANITA LESLIE SCHOULTZ

REMARKS ON SENTENCE 1 HIS HONOUR: The offender, Juanita Leslie Schoultz, has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter on 22 February 2005 of her child Elissa Anne. The child was born on 18 May 2004 during the subsistence of a domestic relationship between the offender and a man I need not name. 2 On 26 April 2006 the offender was committed to this Court for trial on a charge of murder. The Crown presented an Indictment but the offender was permitted to defer consideration of a plea on arraignment. The trial was fixed to begin on 26 March 2007. On 6 October 2006 the offender pleaded not guilty and the trial date was confirmed. As will appear, she and her advisers were seeking all the while to obtain a psychiatric opinion about her state of mind at the time of the child's death. Eventually her advisers served on the Crown a report of Dr Westmore, psychiatrist. The Crown qualified Dr Neilssen, psychiatrist to report and both psychiatrists expressed the opinion that the offender had available to her the defence of substantial impairment by abnormality of mind as a consequence of which the appropriate verdict was not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. During the week before the date fixed for commencement of the trial the offender and the Crown came to an agreement that if the offender should plead guilty to manslaughter the Crown would accept the plea in discharge of the Indictment. The parties informed the Court that there would be no need for a trial. On 26 March 2007 the offender asked to be arraigned again, offered the plea of guilty to manslaughter and the Crown accepted the plea in discharge of the Indictment. 3 Although on the face of it the plea was offered late, it can be said that the offer was made on behalf of the offender as soon as Dr Westmore had given his opinion and that reasonable notice was able to be given for the trial fixture to be vacated. So some benefit thereby accrued to the community, entitling the offender to some mitigation of her sentence.