Queensland man jailed over unlawful killing

A man has been sentenced to six-and-a-half years' imprisonment after pleading guilty to the unlawful killing of a Queensland father in 2012.

A Brisbane Supreme Court jury on Monday found Shane David Lee not guilty of murdering Brian Smith following a nine-day trial.

But jurors could not return either a majority or unanimous verdict for the charge of manslaughter.

Lee subsequently pleaded guilty to that charge, as an inherent alternative, having already entered guilty pleas for counts of interfering with a corpse and unlawful use of a motor vehicle.

Justice Ann Lyons sentenced him to a head term of six-and-a-half years' jail and fixed immediate parole eligibility.

But she explained to Lee it would be "several months" before his case was fully considered and release potentially made possible.

In sentencing, she recounted Lee's evidence in which he said he didn't mean to hurt Mr Smith but admitted to shoving him out of the way and punching him and noted issues of self-defence and accident were still open given the jury's inability to reach a verdict.

"It's clear however that you moved the body (and) you concealed the body, and you fled the scene," she said, also noting the deceased man had a history of medical "vulnerabilities".

She accepted defence submissions Lee had endured a traumatic childhood and described his offending, despite Mr Smith's death, as in the "lower order" of moral culpability.

She also declared more than 1400 days spent in pre-sentence custody as time already served.

Crown prosecutor David Meredith had submitted a term of seven to nine years was warranted.