S 464H(c) of the Crimes Act 1958 says that an admission made to an investigating official by someone who was suspected or ought reasonably to have been suspected of having committed an offence is inadmissible unless,If the confession or admission was made before the commencement of questioning, the confession or admission was recorded by audio …
Month: August 2009
More from the JCV
The Judicial College of Victoria has recently added four new chapters to its Criminal Proceedings Manual.For the summary jurisdiction, the most useful new chapters will be The Accused and Voir Dire.While there's no earth-shattering revelations, it's encouraging to see the new chapters address the consequences of the Criminal Procedure Act 2009.
Submissions on Verdins
Edit: This later post on Verdins includes a crude breakdown of the sorts of cases where mitigation has been found and others where it hasn't.Perhaps the starkest demonstration of the point the court was trying to make about mental imprairment not being an automatic form of mitigation is Freeman v The Queen [2011] VSCA 214. …
Former Chief Justice dies
Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria, John Harber Phillips, died today.I only ever had the opportunity to meet him twice. He seemed a thoroughly decent gentleman, and was certainly a well-respected jurist throughout Victoria and Australia.The Victorian Bar has a short obituary online already. No doubt there will be much more written …
"Why would they lie?"
Edit: For an example of a final address that was considered not to reverse the onus of proof, where an accused's responses were described as "guarded" and "deficient", see Cummins J's reasons in DPP v Baker(No 3).And the position of closing addresses that refer to lies as consciousness of guilt (as expressed in Edwards v …