Only recently my colleague discussed the case of a man who fled from police who wanted to speak with him about dinner.He was charged with resisting the police in their execution of their duty — making life difficult by not hanging around to be investigated. The Magistrates' Court dismissed the charge in Hemingway v Hamilton …
Continue reading Running from the police ain’t a crime when you ain’t arrested
Only recently my colleague discussed the case of a man who fled from police who wanted to speak with him about dinner.He was charged with resisting the police in their execution of their duty — making life difficult by not hanging around to be investigated. The Magistrates' Court dismissed the charge in Hemingway v Hamilton …
Continue reading Running from the police ain't a crime when you ain't arrested
Edit: The decision was affirmed on appeal.You can read our discussion about DPP v Hamilton [2011] VSC 598 here.Not the offence of resisting police, anyway. Thanks to Jeremy Gans for letting me know about this pending appeal.In Hemingway v Hamilton [2011] VMC 10 it was alleged that the accused had left a restaurant without paying …
Interesting times over in the land of the free and home of the brave, as the US Supreme Court has held in a 5-4 decision that the right to silence must be unambiguously (and probably expressly) asserted.The full text of Berghuis v Thompkins 560 US (including the dissenting judgment) can be found here.In the US, …
Section 89 of the Evidence Act 2008 is sure to generate some fresh discussion about whether selective answering can be a valid source of inferences about an accused's consciousness of guilt.The prohibition on the selective answering of an accused in response to police questioning being used to infer a consciousness of guilt - or at least …