Friday, February 29, 2008

Facing inevitable defeat

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Every barrister knows the difficulty of presenting a hopeless case. Especially so in criminal law, where the likelihood of settling (pleadin...
Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Judicial warnings about eyewitness identifications

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Not all the warnings necessary as a safeguard against misuse of identification evidence may be required by statute. The common law may suppl...
Monday, February 25, 2008

Identifying dangerous driving

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You might think from my discussion of R v Hayes , blogged 15 February 2008, that analysing the actus reus and mens rea of an offence is quit...
Thursday, February 21, 2008

Retrospective application of new rules

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When judges strengthen the rule against hearsay to protect the accused’s right to a fair trial, can people who were convicted under the old,...
Friday, February 15, 2008

You can't always get what you want ...

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Where dishonesty offences involve the obtaining of a pecuniary advantage or valuable consideration, does that include getting what one is en...
Thursday, February 07, 2008

Power and legality

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Formalism, technicality, the principle of legality versus substantive justice: when can statutory requirements concerning court procedures b...
Friday, February 01, 2008

No, you decide ...

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When should a court of second appeal remit the question of whether to apply the proviso to the appellate court below? The proviso allows an ...
Thursday, January 31, 2008

A lesser right

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When does a breach of a detainee’s right to be informed of the reasons for detention or arrest make the detention or arrest unlawful? In Saa...
Friday, January 18, 2008

Fixing bad law: bias in military tribunals

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Perceived bias can amount to a breach of a suspect’s rights at a stage of the proceedings prior to trial. This is illustrated in Boyle v Uni...
Wednesday, January 02, 2008

LCN DNA analysis

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The recent decision of the Northern Ireland Crown Court in R v Hoey [2007] NICC 49 (20 December 2007) mentions that New Zealand is one of t...
Friday, December 21, 2007

Cunctation

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Can the prosecution cure an unreasonable delay in the proceedings against an accused by speeding them up? Or, once the accused’s right to a ...
Thursday, December 20, 2007

"Never mind your alibi, put the balaclava on ..."

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Where errors at trial meant that it could not be said that guilt was proved beyond reasonable doubt, the conviction had to be quashed and th...
Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Firearm "use" in drug transactions

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Some gems from Watson v US No.06-571, 10 December 2007: “we do not normally speak or write the Government’s way.” per Souter J, deliverin...
Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Policy v Logic

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R v Daley [2007] SCC 53 (13 December 2007) calls to mind the different approaches that have been taken to the problems for criminal respons...
Monday, December 17, 2007

... the verdict of you all?

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It is easy to agree with one, then the other, of two opposing views of a case. In WGC v R [2007] HCA 58 (12 December 2007) the first two ju...
Friday, December 14, 2007

The lawfulness of police helpfulness

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Where do the police get their powers to be helpful? In Ngan v R [2007] NZSC 105 (13 December 2007) the appellant was injured when his car o...
Thursday, December 13, 2007

Guiding sentencing

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A couple of recent decisions of the United States Supreme Court call attention to the operation of sentencing guidelines. In New Zealand we ...
Tuesday, December 11, 2007

When is a verdict unreasonable?

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An appeal provision of the kind that I have recently referred to (see blogs for R v Jackson , 10 December 2007, and R v Grover , 23 November...
Monday, December 10, 2007

Well done, or half-baked?

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Unresolved differences between judges in a split decision can leave us wondering whether the case was really ready for judgment. In R v Jack...
Friday, December 07, 2007

Breach or miscarriage?

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When should an appeal court acknowledge that an error at trial must be remedied by the granting of a re-trial? To uphold a conviction that w...