Appeals in the Justin McFarlane murder case were heard in the Court of Appeal in Wellington yesterday.
Robert James Cummings, Ryan Warren Geary-Smart and Jacob Christopher Geary-Smart were sentenced for the murder of Mr McFarlane, a 35-year-old North Otago dairy worker and small-time drug dealer, on February 22, 2015, along with Steven Kenneth Boskell.
Boskell, Cummings and Ryan Geary-Smart each received 18-year non-parole minimum sentences.
Jacob Geary-Smart was sentenced to a 17-year minimum non-parole period.
Mr McFarlane was killed on September 11, 2013, after he was tied up with an electrical cord and his face covered in a sheet before he was beaten by the four using a fire poker, beer bottle, golf club and stomping.
Cummings’s lawyer Anne Stevens said she was appealing her client’s sentence and Ryan Geary-Smart’s counsel, David More, and Jacob Geary-Smart’s, counsel Judith Ablett-Kerr QC, were challenging their client’s convictions and sentences.
Mr More said his client appealed his conviction on the basis that there were errors in the judge’s summing up to the jury and the type of verdict for him should have been manslaughter, and he appealed his sentence because he thought the 18-year minimum non-parole period was excessive.
Ms Ablett-Kerr did not respond to calls.
The court’s decision was reserved and could take months to come out.
A spokesman for Kim Julius, the sister of Mr McFarlane, said she declined to comment until a decision was released.
