STATE OF TASMANIA v RALPH GORDON LINNANE 15 AUGUST 2019
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE PEARCE J
Ralph Linnane pleads guilty to cultivating a controlled plant for sale and trafficking in a controlled substance. I also agreed to deal with his plea of guilty to the summary offences of using cannabis, possessing a smoking device, and possessing a firearm and ammunition without a licence. On 19 February 2019 the police went to the defendant’s home at Elliott, in a rural area about 20 kilometres south west of Burnie. They searched his house. In his bedroom they found about two kilograms of cannabis bud, $9,000 in cash, snap lock bags and scales and an unsecured .410 gauge shotgun, along with some smoking devices and some cannabis leaf. In the kitchen was six snap lock bags each containing about an ounce of cannabis bud, and 173 shotgun shells of various types and 32 .22 subsonic rounds. In the lounge were 9 snaplock bags of cannabis seeds, more new snaplock bags, a used smoking device and some cannabis bud.
When the police searched the rest of the property they found two large cannabis compounds containing 69 mature plants, and around the property a further 21 plants in various stages of growth. Two sheds were used as cannabis harvesting and drying areas and one contained a quantity of drying cannabis. All of the plants and the drying cannabis are the subject of the cultivation charge. That is, that the defendant planted, grew and tended to that cannabis with the intention of selling at least some of it.
The basis of the trafficking charge is the admissions he made to the police about having sold cannabis during the two years or so leading up to the search, and his possession of the two kilograms of cannabis bud found inside his home with the admitted intention of selling at least some of it. He admitted to the police having grown cannabis on a progressively larger scale since 2014, but claimed that the crop which the police found was by far the largest. He admitted having sold cannabis to friends and acquaintances for $50 for bags each containing about 16 to 18 grams. He sold for the first time following the crop harvested in early 2017 from which he made about $5,000 or $6,000, and again the following year although less successfully. At normal market value of $250 per ounce the cannabis found in 2019 was worth about $135,000. Mr Linnane sold cannabis at a price well below that, but even so the return would have exceeded $50,000 if he had sold all of it. That does not take into account the two kilograms of cannabis in the house, part of which was also to be sold. It is not asserted by the State that the firearm and ammunition were associated with the trafficking. The shotgun found in the shed had never been used. The defendant admits that he should have handed it in. The ammunition had been left behind by friends.
Mr Linnane is now 73. He is an age pensioner. He held various forms of skilled and semi-skilled manual employment in the mining and construction industries until he suffered a serious back injury in 1988. He has no prior convictions for drug related offending, although he has been in trouble for alcohol related driving offences committed prior to 2005. There are some other convictions for relatively minor offences of dishonesty and violence, but they are all so old as to be no longer of any relevance. His early guilty plea is in his favour. He has used cannabis to self-medicate for pain and anxiety. He started growing his own cannabis in 2014, initially with limited success. His counsel asserted that he planted the cannabis plants the police found only for himself, but he decided to sell some to supplement his income when the crop was much more successful than he expected. I have some doubt about that proposition given that he admitted selling cannabis over the course of more than one crop, the large number of plants found in 2019 and the measures he had taken to set up and use the drying rooms, but his claims were not disputed by the State and I do not wish to interfere with the agreed basis of the plea. Nevertheless, the nature and circumstances of these offences, and the need to deter others, means that a sentence of imprisonment is required. He claims that this has been a lesson for him, that he has been very worried by these charges and that he no longer uses cannabis and instead treats his pain and anxiety with prescribed medication. Because of his lack of prior convictions and his plea of guilty I will suspend all of the term. Mr Linnane will understand that if he offends again in any serious way actual imprisonment is very likely.
Ralph Linnane, on complaint 51130/19, counts 5 and 6, the firearm charges, you are convicted and fined $500. You have 28 days to pay that sum. If you require longer you may enter into a repayment arrangement. On the same complaint, you are convicted on counts 2 and 3, using cannabis and possessing a thing used for administration of a controlled drug. In light of the sentence I am about to impose I make no other order on those counts apart from the forfeiture order. On the indictment you are convicted of cultivating a controlled plant for sale. On the complaint to which I have referred you are convicted on count 2 of trafficking in a controlled substance. Pursuant to the Misuse of Drugs Act 2001 I order that items 3-6, 10, 16 and 18 on Property Seizure Record (Receipt) numbers 158297-9 are forfeited to the State. Under the Crime (Confiscation of Profits) Act 1993, s 11(1)(a) and s 16, I am satisfied that the $9,000 in cash found by the police is proceeds of the trafficking and I order that sum is forfeited to the State. On the charges of cultivating for sale and trafficking I impose one sentence. You are sentenced to imprisonment for 12 months. I wholly suspend that sentence for two years from today. It is a condition of that order that while it is in force you do not commit any offence punishable by imprisonment. If you breach that condition then a court must order that you serve that term unless it is unjust.