The Supreme Court has quashed a convicted murderer’s minimum term of 20 years and replaced it with a minimum term of 17 years and six months imprisonment.
Jovilisi Godrovai was jailed after pleading guilty to a count each of murder and aggravated robbery that occurred in 2016.
The court records show Godrovai was with a friend late one evening and gained entry into an unlit house by removing wooden shutters and louvred windows.
Inside, he came across a 69-year-old woman asleep in bed. He pressed his hands against the woman’s mouth and punched her legs, which startled her awake.
Godrovai then stuffed a piece of cloth into her mouth, tore up a bedsheet and tied a strip of it over her mouth before using a rope to tie the woman’s hands and legs.
He searched the house and found money and other items which he took, but before leaving went to check on the woman, who had by the time died of asphyxia.
Godrovai left the property with the stolen items and rejoined his friend.
On the charge of murder, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum period of 20 years before he could be considered for pardon. He was also sentenced to 12 years and seven months with a non-parole period of 11 years.
According to justices Terence Arnold, Lowell Goddard and William Young’s ruling in April, the petition for leave to appeal against conviction raised the issue of diminished responsibility.
Godrovai submitted that the trial judge should have raised the possibility of this defence, which reduced murder to manslaughter, however, the judges dismissed this.
He also sought to appeal against the minimum sentence imposed upon him for murder in conjunction with the mandatory life sentence, which the Supreme Court granted and reduced.
