Ewen MacDonald: Another idiot wants to rewrite the Law.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/crime/news/article.cfm?c_id=30&objectid=10817417

Typically after the Ewen MacDonald trial we have knee jerks from the knitting brigade. In this case someone whom I gather is a reporter takes umbrage at the right to remain silent. Interestingly, this dude has got his wires crossed as much as his knitting needles. In recent memory we've had the Law changed to remove provocation as a defence on a murder charge. That resulted from the 'Weatherston' case where Weatherston  unsuccessfully attempted to employ the defence but saw it rejected by the Jury. Slowly on that one, the Law worked properly, recognising that no provocation existed in that particular case, but the Law was changed anyway the result being that a beaten spouse, or an abused person has no defence of provocation if they somehow caused the death of their assailant during, or in proximity of some attack, of some kind, on them. Hard for me to follow that 'improvement'.

Above Stevenson makes out his case to dismantle the Law largely using emotion, a proposition that the average person is sophisticated, of sound mind and competency not to accidentally incriminate themselves at the hand of a skilled interrogator. Unfortunately Stevenson destroys his own, pleading, argument by overlooking that in the MacDonald case EM in fact was interrogated by his own choice. EM, whose brother is a senior detective, no doubt understood when read his rights that he anything he may have said could have been used against him. He in fact said that he was told by his family that he could expect a 'good grilling' and that 's what he got. The video interview lasting some where near 4 hours, conducted by a detective no doubt who had been briefed on at least some aspects by Crown Law. 'The grilling' was played to the Jury, I can't imagine any other question could have been asked about MacDonald's actions before or after the death of his brother-in-law. The inquisition was complete and MacDonald came through it in many commentators point of view strongly, as strongly as a man telling the truth in a situation where he understood his adult life depended on it and for which he knew he need not have answered a single question. So the system worked, but a busy knitter frets none the same.

I doubt any lawyer would have advised MacDonald to undertake that grilling. Though, having known the man, perhaps might have encouraged him to do the interview perhaps even sitting in with him. Stevenson makes 'his' list of how the law must be changed to prevent something which (like the Weatherson case) didn't happen. He scoffs at centuries of Law without even acquainting himself with the facts of the case he is critical of and my goodness he's not even a politician, as far as I know, trying to whip up public anxiety to erode our civil rights. It might have been worth taking a critical look at some of the points arriving from the wonder mind of Stevenson had he been able to assemble the facts of the MacDonald case into his argument. He chose to deliberately ignore them just as he should be ignored.

At a time when Watson, Teina Paora and others remain in prison, when the investigation into the Crewe murders remains incomplete, whilst the public await the report in the compensation application by David Bain, while Alan Hall's bid to have his murder conviction quashed we need less anxiety. We need to let the police do their job without pressure to do some things which might be impossible, we probably need an independent or semi-independent review authority of more complex cases considered for suitability for prosecution. On that point I've wondered more at the expression of  Ben Vanderkolk when the boot 'evidence' was destroyed in the MacDonald trial and perhaps we glimpsed for a moment a man feeling let down, perhaps even 'pushed' into a prosecution role of a case where he understood the evidence was marginal if not weak. However, that sits with other issues that need attention and a more positive attitude than the whining from Wellington.