Monday, November 26, 2012

Culpable stimulating

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Information can include mis-information: Mansfield v The Queen [ 2012] HCA 49 (14 November 2012) where insider trading included trading in...
Friday, November 16, 2012

Far from its best work

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I have long regarded (for example here , here , here , here , here , here ) Weiss v The Queen  [2005] HCA 81 ; (2005) 224 CLR 300 as being ...
Monday, November 12, 2012

Acting in the client’s interests but against instructions

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A cautionary note from the Privy Council on the timing of a challenge to the defendant's fitness to stand trial: Taitt v The State (Tr...
Friday, November 09, 2012

A Canadian catch-up

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Now it's time to catch up on some recent cases from the Supreme Court of Canada: R v Prokofiew , 2012 SCC 49 (12 October 2012) concerns...
Monday, October 08, 2012

Risks, numbers and criminal responsibility

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In R v Mabior , 2012 SCC 47 (5 October 2012) the Supreme Court of Canada playfully leaves us to calculate what a "realistic possibilit...
Friday, September 28, 2012

No substitute for money

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The Privy Council in Hamilton v R (Jamaica) [2012] UKPC 31 (16 August 2012) gives a useful little reminder on how a court will exercise its...
Saturday, September 15, 2012

Morality and the scope of criminal liability

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Manslaughter by dangerous act, or by an omission to perform a legal duty, was considered by the High Court of Australia in Burns v The Queen...
Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Judge-alone trials and reasons for verdicts

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Today the High Court of Australia has held inadequate the reasons given at a judge alone trial for convicting the defendant (appellant): Dou...
Saturday, August 25, 2012

Overwhelmed by prejudicial evidence

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When is an error at trial insufficient to require an appeal court to quash a conviction? The more the attention that is given to this questi...
Friday, August 24, 2012

And now we are eight!

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And that is 8 years of this site's existence. It isn't really a blog in the sense of an invitation to readers to post comments. Inst...
Thursday, August 16, 2012

When can one defendant rely on another defendant’s statement to the police?

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If two defendants, A and B, are on trial together, when can A rely on part of B's statement to the police if B does not give evidence? B...
Saturday, August 11, 2012

Scholarly and incite-ful

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A small but fascinating point of general interest arises in The Queen v Khazaal [ 2012] HCA 26 (10 August 2012). If a defendant has the ev...
Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Delay and its various remedies

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The Privy Council has recently corrected any impression that may have existed about when unreasonable delay should result in the staying of ...
Monday, July 23, 2012

Issue estoppel and sentencing facts

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A routine application of issue estoppel, applying R v Mahalingan [2008] SCC 63 (noted here on 15 November 2008) is R v Punko , 2012 SCC 39...
Monday, July 16, 2012

Appellate error and wit

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In the spirit of helpfulness ... Don't rely on what our Court of Appeal said in Tutu v R [ 2012] NZCA 294 (5 July 2012) about there be...

Association with criminal groups

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Some comments of general interest on criminal organisations or what are sometimes called organised criminal enterprises or organised crimina...
Monday, July 02, 2012

Law reform by stealth

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Sometimes the implications of law reforms or new legislation dawn on me rather slowly. This can happen to other people too, thank goodness, ...
Thursday, June 21, 2012

What are the mental elements of dangerous driving?

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Dangerous driving is risk-based, not negligence-based: King v The Queen [2012] HCA 24 (20 June 2012). It is not necessary to ask whether th...
Friday, June 15, 2012

Responsibility for dangerous driving

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The offence of dangerous driving is carefully analysed in R v Roy , 2012 SCC 26 (1 June 2012), where the appellant had been convicted of d...