Codey Herrmann was sentenced to 36 years for murdering Maasarwe in Melbourne in 2019, as she was walking home after a night out with friends. Maasarwe was an Israeli-Arab from the city of Baka al-Gharbiya in northern Israel.
Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd, QC, appealed the sentence handed down to Herrmann for the murder in March, saying that it was "manifestly inadequate," according to local newspaper The Age.
The judge who sentenced Herrmann claimed that the murderer had a "fair" chance of rehabilitation if given appropriate treatment, support and supervision. Judd, however, disagreed, saying that one expert had described Herrmann's prospects of rehabilitation as "poor."
Judd added that life in prison would reflect the "brutality and severity" of the crime. Hermann's lawyer argued that it was impossible to know if the murderer couldn't be rehabilitated, according to The Age.
The Court of Appeals dismissed Judd's challenge. The court had five judges, instead of the usual three, consider the case, due to the significance of the legal challenge.
“Relevantly for present purposes, the sentence can be seen to reflect the giving of appropriate weight to both the horrific nature of the offending and the significant matters in mitigation which Her Honour was bound to take into account,” wrote the appeals judges in their ruling, according to The Age.
Herrmann, an indigenous Australian, experienced a troubled childhood of poverty, neglect and dysfunction and was abandoned by his mother, according to the report. The judge who sentenced Herrmann found that the murderer's personality disorder reduced his moral culpability.