Citations

Significant appellate decisions that our Principal, Fabiano Cangelosi, has been involved in include:

RDA v Tasmania [2021] TASCCA 4

The Applicant had been sentenced to 5 years imprisonment for sexual offending 40 years prior. On appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal, the Court unanimously endorsed Victorian authorities such as R v Boland [2007] VSCA 242 on long temporal lapses between offending and sentencing, where the defendant is wholly reformed. The Court held that the sentencing judge’s discretion had miscarried and suspended 3 years of the sentence.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/tas/TASCCA/2021/4

Jerrim v Smith [2020] TASMC 6

In this case, the leading modern Tasmanian authority on the point, Fabiano successfully argued that a court has no jurisdiction to amend a complaint that does not disclose an offence known to law.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/tas/TASMC/2020/6

Director of Corrective Services v Nguyen [2020] TASFC 11

In a landmark referral to a bench of 3 judges of the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Tasmania, the Court was called upon to give declaratory relief in respect of ambiguous provisions in the Corrections Act 1997, to determine when the non-parole periods applicable to different sentences commence.

DJT v Tasmania (no 2) [2020] TASSC 3

In this case Fabiano successfully argued that the Court of Criminal Appeal provisions under the Criminal Code conferring a right of appeal on a convicted person are not exhausted merely by their having previously unsuccessfully applied to extend time in which to appeal.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/tas/TASSC/2020/37

Krajinovic v Heath [2018] TASSC 38

Appearing as a prosecutor on an appeal against sentence, the Supreme Court of Tasmania accepted Fabiano’s submissions that a sentence of convictions and a fine of $205,000 imposed for planning, building and environmental offences was a proper exercise of sentencing discretion.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/tas/TASSC/2018/38

Tasmania v Davey (No 3) [2018] TASSC 16

In one of the more interesting decisions of the Supreme Court of Tasmania, the Court endorsed Fabiano’s application for a partial stay of an indictment on the basis of prosecutorial “flip flopping”: ie., proceeding against different co-defendants in a logically inconsistent and unfair way.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/tas/TASSC/2018/16

Szabo v Moore [2018] TASSC 31

At a hearing before a Magistrate, the unrepresented Applicant was found guilty and convicted of stealing. On appeal to the Supreme Court of Tasmania, the appellate judge found that the hearing had miscarried, with a number of procedural irregularities having deprived the Applicant of a fair trial.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/tas/TASSC/2018/31

Lacroix v Lacroix [2018] TASFC 8

On appeal to the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Tasmania, the Court unanimously concurred that upon a proper construction of the Family Violence Act 2004 a Magistrate had no jurisdiction to make a family violence order in the absence of strict compliance with service provisions, reversing the decision of a single judge of the Supreme Court of Tasmania in Lacroix v Lacroix [2015] TASSC 42.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/tas/TASFC/2018/8

Arnesto v Hickman [2016] TASSC 26

A leading decision of the Supreme Court of Tasmania on police powers, in which the Applicant successfully appealed convictions for refusing to state her name and assaulting police. Widely cited in subsequent decisions, the principle emerging from Arnesto is that use of police powers must be accompanied by words that unmistakeably show that directions have the force of law, and are not mere requests.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/tas/TASSC/2016/26

Garcie v Lusted [2014] TASSC 27

In this case Fabiano argued what is now the leading modern Tasmanian authority on sentencing principles relevant to young offenders who are not youths, resulting in the imposition of a wholly suspended sentence for assault.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/tas/TASSC/2014/27

Groenewege v Tasmania [2013] TASCCA 7

In the first Tasmanian decision to endorse major authorities on the mitigatory effect of serious psychiatric effect on sentence, the Court of Criminal Appeal reduced to the statutory minimum the non-parole period applicable to the Applicant’s sentence of imprisonment for 4 years and 6 months for arson.

http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/tas/TASCCA/2013/7