Guideline judgments
Guideline judgments are court decisions that give guidance to judges in relation to how they should sentence offenders. One purpose of guideline judgments is to reduce inconsistency in sentencing and help to make sure like cases are treated alike.
Guideline judgments might contain guidelines that apply generally, or guidelines that apply to specific courts, to specific offences, or to specific classes of offenders.
The 
Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999 (NSW) contains a scheme for guideline judgments in sections 36-42A.
The Attorney General can apply for a guideline judgment and the Court of Criminal Appeal can issue guidelines on its own motion.
Following is a list of guideline judgment applications in NSW:
- High Range PCA - Attorney General's Application No 3 of 2002 [2004] NSWCCA 303
- Form 1 - Attorney General's Application No 1 of 2002 [2002] NSWCCA 518
- Assault Police -
Attorney General's Application No 2 of 2002 [2002] NSWCCA 515 This application was refused. - Guilty plea - Thomson and Houlton [2000] NSWCCA 309
- Break, enter and steal - Ponfield [1999] NSWCCA 435
- Drug importation - Wong and Leung [1999] NSWCCA 420. This decision was overruled. See
Wong v The Queen; Leung v The Queen [2001] HCA 64 - Armed robbery - Henry [1999] NSWCCA 111
- Dangerous driving - Jurisic [1998] NSWSC 597. This decision was reformulated in R v Whyte [2002] NSWCCA 343
Last updated:
03 Nov 2022