Mark Lundy - miscarriage of justice?

[korimako1]

Its a bit hard to explain how you got your wife's brain matter on your T-shirt regardless of how fast he may have driven his car. There is nobody more guilty than Mark Lundy.

we now know its not brain tissue. Privy Council june 2013.

[korimako1]

I will try...
A Defence Lawyers soul objective is to defend the accused (I am sure you will agree on that)
A Defence Lawyer will have a fair idea as to how strong his case is before going into court .
In the Mark Lundy case...the Defence failed to defend his case, proof being, Lundy is in jail, no denying that.
I will however, give a wee bit credit to Lundys Lawyer....must a bastard of a job trying to defend a quilty man, but he gave it a go.

lundys lawyers were MISINFORMED by Police withholding documents, illegal acts by Police. nondisclosure. FACT.

[Katman]

The weapon was never found but the wounds indicated that it was a tomahawk or small axe.

Lundy painted all his tools with a blue and orange paint combination. Guess what was found in all the wounds..... blue and orange paint flakes. The paint flakes were matched to the paint on the other tools in his shed and also to the pots of blue and orange paint that were still in his garage.

I am gob-smacked that you could suggest that that is any sort of conclusive proof.

It merely suggests that the murder weapon came from the Lundy's shed. Anyone could have been into the shed prior to entering the house. The implement used may have even already been inside the house.

Please tell me your statement isn't indicative of the investigative skills of the New Zealand Police.

[korimako1]

was he??? A call was made from his cell phone in Petone?? doesnt mean it was him though. Just another grey area

Police never disputed he was in Petone.

[korimako1]

what a defence lawyer does is test the prosecution's case.

These are fundamental concepts to the way we structure our society and the way that the rule of law works. Its a system that works mostly, though being set up and maintained by humans. there are bound to be glitches, cockups and the occasional hilarity.

I am amazed at how often I have to explain this to people but here we go:

an accused person is innocent, until they are proven guilty.

In a criminal proceeding that proof is "beyond reasonable doubt"

"Beyond reasonable doubt" is is they absolutely did it, not "he is more likely than not" to have done it. (i.e. 99% probability, not 51%). Dont get hung up on the number or the 1% its just illustrative: your results may vary)

So in any given criminal proceeding we have the Pleece, who investigate, and then prosecute an accused person (if its serious then the Crown instructs lawyers to do its work for it: these are the Crown Prosecutors and they make out like bandits). That accused person is entitled to a fair trial and in that trial the Judge decides the law, but the jury decides the facts

What the defence lawyer does is try and see if the prosecution's case stands up: to raise that reasonable doubt if you will: lay people think of this as "getting off on a technicality" but in fact it is fundamental to the way the system works. If there is a technicality there to be gotten off on, it means someone has fucked up on the prosecution side, simple as that.

People that i know that do criminal defence work do it not because of their desire to work long hours for little pay, arguing for every bean from the Legal Aid people, but because they do have some concept of wanting the system to work as it should, plus they absolutely live for the challenge of the game. Every time they win, its like the Makos winning the Ranfurly Shield (to adopt a metaphor you all understand but I have no clue about): i.e. the underdog wins.

It really pisses me off when people equate in their minds the criminal defence lawyer with their client. Even the most loathsome client deserves the best defence, because as soon as you don't allow that defence, and as soon as you undermine that system (which has been 500 years in the making) you are undermining some very basic concepts about this society and its structure, without really thinking about it.

Of course, if it is established that some miscreant has committed some heinous act, then the question is what as a society do we do about that? But thats a different debate (and one which you will not be surprised to hear that I have very definite opinions about as well).

The key concept here is that the loss of personal liberty, and sanction by the state is such an imposition on the liberty of its citizens that it is better to have the system "weighted" (if you like) in favour of the defendant.

Now, having said all that, all this rhetoric about "hang em high" and "burn them on sight" and "crush their cars" and whatever is a very long way from the liberal democracy you thought you lived in.

All well and good but the police collect all the evidence and decide who they think is Guilty. they arrest that person then the public have that person offered up as the guilty party. the Defence is entitled to ALL the facts the Police or Crown have against you, basic human right, including repeat including any items of fact that may prove you are innocent of the crime. The system only works correctly when this happens. We now know that important information was withheld from Mark Lundys lawyers. So if you recieve incorrect information you make a incorrect decisions. Mark Lundys lawyers made incorrect decision and so did the Jury based on misinformation.

[korimako1]

Yeah, that's a tempting but hollow call, which HDC has answered eloquently above.

The thing is, one defence lawyer on limited legal aid is up against the whole system. Crown prosecutors, police prosecutors, senior detectives, case officers, CRI scientists, police computer experts, overseas forensic scientists, there is no end to the amount of money and manpower which can be brought against an accused person.

I'm confident Lundy was well represented. If the N&S article is accurate then the defence simply didn't have the ability to question stuff which only now looks unreliable. Hindsight is wonderful.

I should also say that convincing a jury beyond a reasonable doubt is bloody difficult. Try getting 12 people together and make them agree on something. I think Lundy was convicted on the totality of evidence and the brain cells must have been crucial. If they are suspect.......??

NON DISCLOSURE by Police illegal. only tell them what we want them to know. its should be a level playing field but its not. And its the Police who squeal (LOL) the loudest when they get caught out.

[Edbear]

Average speed needed to be 117kph I think you'll find.

Surely you are not suggesting people find out the facts before making criticisms are you..?

[scissorhands]

How may class action suits have been taken against Johos for paedophilia?

[unstuck]

How may class action suits have been taken against Johos for paedophilia?

What does that have to do with the Mark Lundy case. Dude, leave the mindless trolling to the ones who are actually good at it.

[Katman]

Some of the stuff on that Lundy site is ludicrous. (like "How do they know it wasnt some P-head on a robbery gone bad"? without dealing with any of the evidence pointing to Lundy)

I read through the entire section about the doubts surrounding the case and didn't actually find anything that I would describe as ludicrous. In fact it came across as very level-headed and succinctly put.

The idea of a P hit on a mistaken identity is not outside the realms of possibility. I personally know someone who had to get an unlisted number due to phone harassment over some P deal gone bad that the person hadn't the faintest idea about.

[Katman]

So the police, yet again, withhold information that could have potentially destroyed their case.

The police's explanation for Christine being in bed at 7pm (when she would normally have been watching Shortland Street) was that in the phone conversation that she had with Mark that night he had convinced her to get into bed because he was coming home to have sex with her.

However, according to the North & South article.......

Julie Burnett, who rang Christine at 6.56pm
that Tuesday, inquired whether Mark would
be at wine club the following week. At trial,
she merely said Christine told her Mark was
out. But in a previously undisclosed notebook
from an interview with Burnett, Detective
Melinda Rix writes: “CL tells JB ML out and
will be back in town Wed” – not that she was
expecting him home any moment.

[Maha]

do you know what reasonble doubt is?

Yip, been on a jury before today, defendant was on a charge of 'supply a class b drug' he was caught with small snap lock bags/a small scale/ a briefcase full of cash/brown wage envelopes and we the jury found him not guilty of supply because the prosecution could not cast reasonable doubt. Oh he was guilty alright, but it could not be proven. He had already been found guilty of possession by a previous jury.

In a court of law, the jury takes direction/instrution by the judge, and I remember him saying that ''even if it is found that the defendant had shared his drugs with someone else at the party, it was deemed as supply''.

[Katman]

Yip, been on a jury before today, defendant was on a charge of 'supply a class b drug' he was caught with small snap lock bags/a small scale/ a briefcase full of cash/brown wage envelopes and we the jury found him not guilty of supply because the prosecution could not cast reasonable doubt.

The prosecution tries to prove beyond reasonable doubt.

The defense tries to cast reasonable doubt.

[sugilite:Me]

Bloody melt downs.

Maori women who wail like all fuck at funerals? I mean, they go all out!

Now it always looks fake to me, but it's not like I can ever ask them about it. So I still don't know.

I was deeply immersed in a very large Maori family for 26 years, still kinda are with my 4 kids having their blood, and yeah, the wailing is a cultural thing. Maoris are no different from other races, where some are genuine, and some are not. I've seen cases of both. Some were so heart felt, it had the effect of fair yanking tears from my eyes. Others I have seen walking along like dum, de dum, dum dum, then walk around the corner into the marae and WAHHHHHHHHH.

I watched naf all TV or read papers about the time of the Lundy murders, but I did catch the funeral footage on the news, and the 1st thing that hit me (like a sledge hammer) when I saw him wailing was "Fuck, he murdered his wife and kid".

[scumdog]

I am gob-smacked that you could suggest that that is any sort of conclusive proof.

It merely suggests that the murder weapon came from the Lundy's shed. Anyone could have been into the shed prior to entering the house. The implement used may have even already been inside the house.

Please tell me your statement isn't indicative of the investigative skills of the New Zealand Police.

Well it sure as hell fits in with what the ding-bat ranters on KB refer to as 'evidence' - you included...