Where an experienced Magistrate fails to state in open court that a sentence has been reduced on account of a guilty plea as required by s 8(4) of the Sentencing Act 1995 (WA), the court will not infer error from that omission alone if the sentence is within a sound discretionary range taking into account the plea. Self-induced intoxication does not mitigate penalty, and the fact that an offence is a 'first' of its particular type does not attract the usual first-offence leniency where the offending is attributable to a continuing underlying condition such as alcohol dependence that has manifested in other types of offending. The transitional two-thirds requirement in cl 2 of Sch 1 of the Sentencing Legislation Amendment and Repeal Act 2003 (WA) does not apply where the statutory penalty for the offence has been amended since the new provisions commenced, but does apply where only the description of the offence (not the penalty) has been amended.
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