Friday, June 30, 2006

Our case against you is secret ...

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No one could be surprised that included in the guarantees recognised as indispensable by civilised peoples are the right, when on trial, to ...
Wednesday, June 28, 2006

The Ellis case and trial fairness

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For a draft paper on the trial of Peter Ellis for sexual offending at the Christchurch Civic Creche, see my web site, and follow the links t...
Thursday, June 15, 2006

A look at torts ...

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During this strangely extended lacuna between interesting criminal cases around the world, we have a moment to glance at yesterday’s decisio...
Thursday, May 04, 2006

Inchoate offences and the scope of mens rea

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We have already noted the Supreme Court’s decision in L v R (see blog for 3 April 2006), in which the mental elements of an attempt to comm...
Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Thou art far more fair than she ...

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Is Australian criminal law really fairer than New Zealand’s? In Moloney v New Zealand [2006] FCA 438 (21 April 2006) (blogged here on 1 May ...
Monday, May 01, 2006

A difference of reasonable minds

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Fairness can be a very difficult matter to agree on, as is demonstrated in cases where judges have differed among themselves: see, for illus...
Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Public policy and degrees of misconduct

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Public policy exclusion of evidence is sometimes still spoken of by courts as if it was a means of protecting the accused’s right to a fair ...

Seeing and believing

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Eyewitness identification evidence may need to be treated with some circumspection, and juries are usually given a direction on the special ...
Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Balancing "cogency" of wrongfully obtained evidence

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Simmons v R (Bahamas) [2006] UKPC 19 (3 April 2006) gives us an opportunity to highlight the distinction between "fairness" when ...
Monday, April 03, 2006

You may not get what you want ...

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The crime of attempting to commit a crime has come under scrutiny in L v R [2006] NZSC 18 (30 March 2006), which concerned the state of min...
Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Good character again

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Once again, see Index, the topic of the significance of absence of a good character direction has concerned the Privy Council: Gilbert v R (...
Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Two points of conduct

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In Ebanks v R (Cayman Islands) [2006] UKPC 16 (27 March 2006) the Privy Council reminded us of a couple of fundamental points: - when a clie...
Thursday, March 23, 2006

School Rules, OK!

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Yesterday, the House of Lords decided Begum v Denbigh High School [2006] UKHL 15 (22 March 2006), a case that has some bearing on how a pro...
Friday, March 17, 2006

Rights and Power

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This week’s decision of the European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section) concerning Application no. 23276/04 by Saddam Hussein draws our...
Thursday, March 16, 2006

Legality v Common sense

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Should one feel sorry for a person who, having served a sentence of imprisonment, has his convictions quashed on appeal because the evidence...
Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Inferences of innocence

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A commonly advanced ground of appeal against conviction is that the evidence supported an inference of innocence and the judge did not corre...
Monday, March 13, 2006

Metaphysical laws

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Can the law have been other than it was understood to have been at the time? If it can, are we currently operating under a misunderstanding ...
Thursday, March 09, 2006

What a "fair trial" means

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Today, the High Court of Australia decided Nudd v R [2006] HCA 9 (9 March 2006), a case with helpful dicta on the meaning of "fair tria...
Thursday, March 02, 2006

Bad technique!

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Sometimes, evidence that the accused has been convicted for committing other offences is admissible to prove that he committed the offence ...
Monday, February 20, 2006

Overcoming the void

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As everyone knows, the law of Scotland has its origins in Roman-Dutch law. Its technical language can look a little strange to English juris...
Friday, February 17, 2006

The "overarching requirement" of fairness

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The interrelationship between the requirements that statements be made voluntarily, and that trials be fair, was central to the unanimous de...
Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Easy does it!

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The Supreme Court’s decision in Thompson v R [2006] SCNZ 3 (15 February 2006), in which answers to questions at trial were held not to have...
Thursday, February 09, 2006

Rushing to judgment

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Cutting to the chase in trials can look unfair. Where legal submissions are necessary, judges may be tempted to deal with them peremptorily,...