A man who was sentenced to seven years in prison for kissing a woman in the street under New Zealand’s controversial “three strikes” law has been awarded $450,000 in compensation by the government.
The man, Daniel Fitzgerald, who has significant mental health issues, was charged with indecent assault after he approached and kissed a stranger in a Wellington street. He had committed two similar crimes, and so was sentenced under New Zealand’s recently repealed laws, which compelled the judge to give a maximum sentence – seven years – for the offence, despite mitigating factors, unless it was “manifestly unjust” to do so.
In 2021, by which time Fitzgerald had been in prison for more than four years, the supreme court ruled that the three strikes law had resulted in a sentence so grossly disproportionate that it breached his rights. He was re-sentenced to six months.
The compensation, outlined in a high court decision on Thursday, is for the four years he had already served.
In her ruling, judge Rebecca Ellis said: “Mr Fitzgerald’s sentence was not simply disproportionate, it was grossly so, in breach of one of his most fundamental rights.”
The judge also found that the Crown prosecutor, who had repeatedly declined to downgrade to lesser charges, had failed to exercise prosecutorial discretion to avoid the risk of Fitzgerald receiving a grossly disproportionate punishment.
Earlier this year, New Zealand’s Labour government repealed the law, which had been brought in by the previous National-Act governing coalition.
“There was no evidence that it worked,” the justice minister, Kiritapu Allan, said. “It failed to be a deterrent to offenders, it failed the taxpayer, and it failed victims, because it ensured they were in the system for longer.”
National and Act, who created the law when last in government, have said they would reinstate the law if re-elected, and that it “meant that the worst repeat offenders spent longer in prison”.
