#Brett walker murder trial
So it wouldn’t be a case of “someone getting away with murder” – “to use inappropriate language as has been used against us” – but rather “a process of a trial according to law, during the course of which there are some rulings, some of which may be right, some of which may be wrong”. He argued that the legislature (in this case, the NT Parliament) accepted the possibility of acquittals in a trial during which “there has been a significant error of law”. Mr Rolfe was represented at the High Court by Brett Walker SC.
#Brett walker murder full
In other words, the Crown’s view is that, in upholding the role for the good faith defence in this murder trial, the Full Court’s ruling undermines the Criminal Code‘s protections for the public from excessive use of force by police, as the Criminal Code requires that the use of of force has to be reasonable in the circumstances. “We say that the reasoning of the Full Court really eviscerates the protection that 48BD and 208E provide to the community about police officers,” he said, “with the concept of reasonableness being an essential part of the limitations on the use of force.”
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Whether or not the conduct was reasonable would not come into it, whereas the defences available to him under the Criminal Code, in sections 48BD and 208E, “impose notions of reasonableness”.Īllowing the accused to take advantage of the “good faith” defence would mean that the Criminal Code defences would have “very little, if any role to play”, according to Mr Strickland. The challenge for the Crown would be to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he did not honestly believe, in that moment, that he was acting as a police officer. This is because, he said, under s 148B the only matter the accused would need to raise would be that at the time of the alleged unlawful second and third shots – which on the forensic evidence are the shots that killed Kumanjayi Walker – he was exercising a policing power or function in “good faith”, that is, honestly.
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Justice Gleeson, photo High Court of Australia’s website. On September 10, the High Court will hear the prosecution’s application for special leave to appeal the recent decision by the Full Court of the Northern Territory about legal questions in this matter.Īs reported below, the key concern of the prosecution is with the police immunity defence provided by section 148B of the NT”s Police Administration Act 1978.Īt Friday’s hearing of the stay application Crown prosecutor Philip Strickland SC went so far as to say that if this defence were allowed there would be “a real issue as to whether a trial ought to proceed at all” (though this would be a decision not for him, but for the Director of Public Prosecutions). High Court Justice Jacqueline Gleeson has this morning ordered a stay – a halt in proceedings – in the trial of Zachary Rolfe until 4pm, September 10.Įmpanelment of the jury was scheduled to start in the Supreme Court in Darwin this morning at 10am.