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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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^
i dunno, it just seems that in this day and age having a limit to appeals and having to live with a final decision doesn't work. 
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Pies4shaw 
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| FWIW, the President, the Chief Justice and the Honourable Justice Weinberg will work this out, entirely unassisted. |
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K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
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| "The Court of Appeal will hand down its judgment on Wednesday next week from 9.30am, live-streamed from the Supreme Court." |
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Thanks K! Will be watching with interest. I reckon he walks free, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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A summary of what tomorrow’s ruling is likely to depend upon:
https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/08/19/george-pell-appeal-reasonable-doubt/
| Quote: | George Pell and the meaning of ‘reasonable doubt’
David Ward
George Pell’s appeal against his conviction of child sexual assault turns on one question that resists examination and another that must survive it. What is a reasonable doubt? Was it reasonable for the jury that convicted him not to have it?
Two days of courtroom submissions in early June left us little the wiser on the first question. The ensuing analysis was more intent on exploring the narrative possibilities than the basis for them. On Wednesday we’ll learn whether the jury’s guilty verdict is affirmed or set aside. Either way, the reasons provided will offer an overdue insight into the uncertain latitudes of reasonable doubt.
The High Court authority to which the Victorian Court of Appeal must defer is 25 years old and not overly expansive: “A reasonable doubt experienced by the court is a doubt which a reasonable jury ought to have experienced”. The court must examine the evidence afresh and decide for itself whether it proves the charges to the required standard.
Beyond reasonable doubt is a high standard of proof, that much we know. Beyond that, its meaning is still somewhere on the spectrum between self-evident and inescapably subjective.
Justice Chris Maxwell, President of the Court of Appeal and one of the judges who will decide Pell’s fate, spoke to the blurred contours of the task during the hearing. “It’s the very inscrutability of the verdict that is its most striking feature,” he said, contemplating the task of getting inside the jury’s mind. “We have to give reasons. They don’t.”
Even before the appeal it was difficult to understand how a jury could have been sufficiently doubt-free to convict. The uncorroborated evidence of a single witness usually isn’t enough to ground a conviction.
In this case the improbability of the offending was supported by about 20 witnesses at the trial and remarked upon by two of the judges during the appeal. Those witnesses placed Pell in locations that would have made it very difficult for him to commit the crimes at the specified times. It would have required a number of church officials and functionaries to coincidentally depart from their normal practices and for Melbourne’s (then) newly-appointed archbishop to push the extremities of risk-taking.
A dry recounting of the case details does little to dispel the reasonable doubts. The victim’s account changed during the investigation and again under cross-examination at trial. The case put to the jury by the Crown differed again from the victim’s final evidence. The abuse was only reported after the second victim died of a drug overdose in 2014, having denied being abused. The dates of the offending were also subject to variation — at least one other date was proffered and then withdrawn.
Inconsistencies in a victim’s recollection of sexual abuse are no longer regarded as inherently adverse to the victim’s credibility. There is general acceptance of forensic authority that the passage of time — in this case, 22 years — can affect a victim’s recollection of detail without rendering the memory inaccurate or unreliable. Nor is denial unusual in victims of abuse. But these belated acknowledgements go some way to negating a disadvantage rather than conferring an advantage. They don’t lower the standard of proof or shift the onus of establishing it.
That Pell was advised against taking the stand probably reflected a realistic concern that he would not make a particularly sympathetic witness. That the victim was plainly a most convincing witness suggests the renowned demolition tactics of Pell’s trial QC, Robert Richter, backfired badly. Richter said the victim was a “fantasist” and his story an impossibility. The witness held up. The question for the court is whether that is enough to overcome the significant improbabilities and high standard of proof.
A remark ventured by Justice Mark Weinberg on the first day of the appeal may prove instructive. “It’s unfortunate in some ways that the case was pitched at the level of impossibility”, the judge said. “The risk of running it that way is that the jury, faced with competing arguments, answers the wrong question. It answers the question: was it possible?”
We don’t know whether the jury applied the standard of proof correctly because juries don’t give reasons. We do know the victim’s testimony was given by closed-circuit television away from the court, and the first jury couldn’t reach a verdict. We know the second jury watched a recording of the same evidence and the appeal court judges watched the same recording. So the proper deference an appeal court owes to the jury is diminished.
Should the judgment go Pell’s way, it won’t be a victory for arcane legal logic over common justice. It will simply mean the high standard of proof that still applies was not met in this exceptional case. It will portend a great deal more if the trial verdict holds because it will vindicate the high value placed on the first-hand testimony of victims.
The two other grounds of the appeal are not likely to have occupied the court for long. The verdict will stand or fall on the question of reasonable doubt.
“Each of us has had very wide experience of the circumstances that can give rise to a doubt,” said Justice Maxwell, presumably in reference to his two colleagues.
There is every reason to believe they’ll get it right.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Pies4shaw
pies4shaw
Joined: 08 Oct 2007
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| One more sleep to go. |
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K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
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"The 13 reasons why (according to his lawyers) Pell should be freed...
The lawyers say the offences could not have occurred because:
The timing of the assaults was impossible. The victim initially told police both attacks took place in 1996 but prosecutors told the jury the second incident happened in 1997.
It was not possible for Pell to be in the sacristy a few minutes after mass when witnesses said they saw him go to the front of the cathedral to greet parishioners.
It was not possible for Pell to be robed and alone in the sacristy, because church officials always ensured the then archbishop was never left unattended.
It was not possible for the two choirboys to be sexually assaulted in the sacristy undetected.
It was not possible for the boys to leave a procession outside without being noticed.
Officials near the sacristy did not see either boy.
It was not possible for the boys to be absent from the choir room, after the procession, without someone noting their absences.
It was not possible for the boys to re-enter the choir room unnoticed.
The crimes attributed to Pell are physically impossible because he wore heavy, cumbersome robes.
The prosecution case that the second incident happened in 1997 was contrary to the victim's own evidence.
No one noticed the second incident when the victim said he was attacked in a busy corridor.
It was not possible for Pell to be in the corridor because he would have either been greeting parishioners or at the end of any internal procession.
Other people present did not see anything consistent with the prosecution case."
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/pell-s-day-of-judgment-is-upon-him-with-appeal-court-to-reveal-verdict-20190820-p52j16.html
[I don't know how #10 is different from #1.] |
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K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
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| Pies4shaw wrote: | | FWIW, the President, the Chief Justice and the Honourable Justice Weinberg will work this out, entirely unassisted. |
The Age tells us Justice Weinberg was born in Sweden. I've no idea why The Age thinks that has any relevance to anything. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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The appeal has been dismissed, with a 2-1 majority.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Just read that.
I suppose the reasons will be interesting to read and perhaps how close the 2-1 was to being 1-2.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Basically, they found that the acts were both possible and, given the compelling testimony of the victim, beyond reasonable doubt. The dissenting judge, Mark Weinberg, however, found that the testimony was unbelievable and implausible.
Perhaps the prosecution lawyer, Christopher Boyce, was more brilliant than any of us gave him credit for (or more likely, that it didn't matter greatly what he said or did during the hearing).
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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thesoretoothsayer
Joined: 26 Apr 2017
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| David wrote: | | The appeal has been dismissed, with a 2-1 majority. |
Really surprised.
It does seem that for sex crimes, at least, the presumption of innocence is being replaced by a presumption of guilt. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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While that may or may not be true in the media and popular discourse, I don't see any reason to believe that such a trend has infected the processes of the courts. While I also found the allegations implausible, it may well be that the victim's testimony (which we don't have access to) was extremely compelling, and that Pell's defences simply weren't as rock solid as he thought they were. Ultimately, any conviction for any crime rests on such matters, and even if Pell were innocent in this case he wouldn't be the first (or hundred thousandth) person to go down for a crime he didn't commit.
Anyway, off to the High Court next, if he decides to appeal further and they agree to hear the case. From what I've read, he'd have very little chance of winning that.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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Apparently the video evidence from the victim is far more compelling than reading the transcript.
having said that, seeing reference to decisions that things were "not impossible" still throws me a bit. They had to decide that only was it possible, or probable that he did those things, but that they were convinced beyond reasonable doubt that he did do them.
I still struggle with how they could come to that decision, but I haven't seen all of the evidence.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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^ The appeal judges did make a point of saying that – that it was never Pell's onus to defend against possibility. But it does make you wonder what precisely the concept of "reasonable doubt" epistemologically entails, and how subjective that line is.
If we take Descartes' approach, pretty much anything can be doubted; but obviously that's no basis for a functional criminal justice system. On the other hand, surely "beyond reasonable doubt" has to mean something a little more rigorous than "I reckon he probably did it". Guess I should have studied law so I could know the answer to these questions! 
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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