The Court of Appeal has dismissed a prosecution appeal against a five-year prison sentence imposed on Declan Harris for a heroin offence, leaving the Circuit Criminal Court sentence in place.
In its ex tempore judgment delivered on 9 July 2018, the court said the sentence was lenient but not so lenient as to require appellate intervention. It said there could be no question of reducing it and that a more severe sentence, if properly reasoned at first instance, might have been upheld.
The offence arose after Gardaí stopped a vehicle at the Dunkettle Interchange on 2 February 2016. Harris, a passenger, had heroin valued by Gardaí at €2,830. After his arrest and detention, he admitted possession and said the drugs were for personal use.
The Circuit Criminal Court in Cork sentenced him to five years’ imprisonment on 23 February 2017 for an offence under section 15 of the Misuse of Drugs Act. The sentencing judge described the drugs as intended for sale or supply and characterised the operation as planned and for profit. The Court of Appeal said the offence fell well into the mid-range of seriousness for section 15 offences, taking account of the heroin, the operation’s nature and Harris’s relevant prior record, while acknowledging the quantity was relatively modest.
The prosecution argued that the sentencing judge had not identified a headline sentence, explained the allowance for the guilty plea, or placed the offence on a scale of gravity. It also challenged what it said was undue emphasis on the absence of rehabilitation. The appeal court agreed that the sentencing remarks were unusually brief and the sentence structure disappointing, but said a failure to follow good practice did not automatically require the sentence to be quashed and replaced.
Harris was 58 at sentencing. Defence lawyers described him as a heroin addict of 20 years; Gardaí described him as a heroin user. He had previous Misuse of Drugs Act convictions, including prison sentences imposed in 2008 and 2009. The judgment records that a nine-year sentence imposed in April 2009 was reduced to eight years on appeal by the then Court of Criminal Appeal.
In deciding not to intervene, the Court of Appeal also considered that any new sentence would have to be imposed as of the 2018 hearing, rather than February 2017. It had received a positive report from the Governor of Loughan House about Harris’s conduct in custody and progress there. The court said that report would have weighed against a substantial increase if it had decided intervention was necessary.