POLITICAL REACTION
Prime Minister John Key said the Privy Council decision showed the strength of the justice system.
"Somebody who believes there's been a miscarriage of justice can continue to test their rights and this is a very historical case, it's complex."
Key said some "interesting things" had been raised.
"But all I can say is everybody has the right to continue to test whether they are innocent or guilty.
"If they believe they are innocent they can put up a genuine case which is certainly the situation here where the Privy Council has given leave for Teina Pora to take his case back, and let's see what the Privy Council says."
Justice Minister Judith Collins said the decision showed the justice system was working.
"What it shows is the matter is still before the courts and the system actually works very well," she said.
"The decision from the Privy Council is simply that Mr Pora has been granted leave to appeal and so we now will go through the process and see what the decision is from that."
She said she could "not possibly" comment on why the Privy Council made its decision.
"I think it suggests that the Privy Council has found enough for them to be interested in looking further and that's quite a right thing to do if that's what they decide."
Pora did have an application in with the minister to consider granting a pardon.
A spokeperson from Collins' office said that application had been placed on hold at the request of Pora's lawyers, while they pursued a Privy Council hearing.
John Key is quoted above from Stuff that the Privy Council decision (in the Pora case to grant leave to Appeal) shows the strength of the Justice System. On the contrary it shows the weakness of the Justice System. It's only by virtue of the age of the Pora case that the man has been able to have his case heard at the Privy Council which is no longer available to New Zealanders as the highest Court. That right has long been swept away by a previous Government. John key says that this is a historical case, yet all the cases that emerge, as shown to be Miscarriages of Justice in New Zealand, particularly murder convictions resulting in life sentences, are historical casesThey become 'historical' because of the length of time it takes for such cases to be remedied. In other words using the word 'old' or 'historical' doesn't displace the urgency of resolving such cases it simply shows New Zealand's abysmal ability to correct injustice delivered through the Justice System.
John Key also notes that the case is 'complex,' again I disagree. The only complexity in the Pora case is that the police held a young man incommunicado under the pretence of helping him gain a reward, that he gone to solicit from them, but ultimately showed him the crime scene and used the teenagers below average intelligence as a weapon against him to extract a confession. When it was later revealed that the victim Susan Burdett's body revealed the dna of serial rapist Malcom Rewa, the police tried Rewa for rape and murder arguing for the first time the older man had been an accomplice of the teenager. He was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of rape. In a separate re-trial Pora was again found guilty. The only people ever able to place Pora and Rewa together were paid informants. There was no dna or physical evidence linking Pora to the murder, all the 'evidence' resulted from the information given to him by the police and stitched together in the first instance without the name Rewa ever being mentioned. All of this is now for the Privy Council to deliberate. However the decision of Pora's appeal is highly likely to join 2 other recent cases, Bain and Lundy where the PC found injustice had occurred that New Zealands Appeal Court had 'overlooked' for what were analysed as the Court placing themselves in the seat of a Jury and second guessing what they 'might' have decided.
So the word 'complex' used by Key is clearly linked to 'historical,' that is the amount of time that a case might take to wind its way through the system. However, that also reveals another reason why cases become 'historical.' Defendants are not funded to appeal. An inmate perhaps in maximum security, no income, no means is expected to pay their own way in order, as Key puts it, to 'show(ed) the strength of the justice system.' Although in the Lundy case costs toward the hearing at the PC were granted by way of Legal Aid, that wasn't the case with Bain or to this point with Pora. Moreover, the Lundy 'costs' didn't include the work done by his counsel for years before being able to have the case heard in London. So another way the 'justice system' shows its 'strength' is by inhibiting appeals, shutting the door on them unless a convicted person is fortunate enough to have help offered at no cost - yet even then the hurdles will remain in place. I say that because there is none of the current controversial cases where the police or prosecuting authorities have taken a 'fresh' look at the ambiguities of the Miscarriages of Justice and not contested them at appeal or at Trial. In fact in Lundy it took prosecutors some 12 years, or so, to have over information from it's own file and experts which stated that Lundy should not be convicted on the basis of degenerated dna. 14 years, adds a long time to history, or making the case 'historical' as our Prime Minister comfortably describes in his 'health report,' that neither mentions lack of funding, and indeed a Superior Commonwealth Court that New Zealanders are now denied by their own Government.
Turning to the comments of the Minister of Justice above, in particular this ,,,,,,"The decision from the Privy Council is simply that Mr Pora has been granted leave to appeal and so we now will go through the process and see what the decision is from that."
She said she could "not possibly" comment on why the Privy Council made its decision.
"I think it suggests that the Privy Council has found enough for them to be interested in looking further and that's quite a right thing to do if that's what they decide."
We are treated to a version that is 'simply' that Pora has been granted leave to appeal. That 'simply' has been the highest possible hurdle for a convicted person, with no money, no lawyer, possibly no public interest in the case and a Minister that seems unable to comprehend is not in anyway the constitution of the word 'just.'
The worst feature of the Pora case will be that 'historically' it will be revealed that the police and Crown were in bed with the real killer Rewa, and essentially let him go to 'cover' their framing of Pora.
Correction added 2/2/14: It appears that Mark Lundy also did not receive Legal Aid to take his case to the Privy Council. This adds further emphasis as to how wrong the Prime Minister is with his claims that the 'justice system' is working unless one considers 'working' as meaning imprisoning the falsely convicted and leaving them to their own devices or the help of others to find their freedom.
Interesting post, as a small correction Rewa was never acquitted on the murder charge regarding Susan Burdett, there were 2 hung juries on the murder count. The first trial for his 27 rapes there was a hung jury on both the rape and murder counts relating to Burdett, and at a retrial later in 1998 a second jury this time convicted him of the rape, but again couldn't come to a decision on the murder charge.
ReplyDeleteTechnically, once the convictions are quashed for Pora and I am pretty sure they will be, there is nothing stopping the Crown from dragging Rewa out of Paremoremo Prison and putting him on trial again for Burdett's murder. Whether this will occur remains to be seen, as Malcolm Rewa is already serving Preventative Detention with a 22 year minimum so he may never get out of prison as it currently stands already.
Really though, as early as mid 1996 (When it was determined that the semen found inside Susan Burdett belonged to the serial rapist Rewa) the case should have been thoroughly reviewed and Pora's convictions should have been quashed, and in the clearer waters Rewa would have surely been convicted of both the rape and murder of Burdett.
Interesting link below as well, with comments from the Criminal Profiler whose knowledge of Rewa and his offending method also stating his belief in Pora's innocence :
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10806944
Thanks for that information about the hung juries on both trials of Rewa for murder. I'd either forgotten or overlooked that. I'm speculating again, but it would be unlikely that Rewa would not be found guilty if there were a third trial for him because all the options for a jury would be clear - a simple, did the rapist kill her and is there any credible evidence he didn't act alone. Such a trial I think would be important for a lot of people, not least the police.
DeleteYou are right about 1996, there is no excuse for what happened then after the revelation about Rewa's dna being identified. There is no excuse either for Pora to have been placed in the position he was earlier by Rutherford, or for the Courts to have to have 'allowed' improperly gathered evidence, of a very suspect nature to be used against him - particularly where no physical evidence linked him to the scene.
Thanks and a very good summary of the political situation though, John Key stating that the system is 'working' is ridiculous because if it wasn't for the hard work of Pora's legal team and supporters he would still be languishing in prison (as he still is currently) and many in the public domain myself included would not even have heard of this travesty of justice. The Police officers in charge of this case we would all agree seemed more interested in validating their original prosecution of Pora after Rewa was identified rather than admitting that they got the wrong guy.
DeleteThose videos of the 'interviews' of Pora were shocking, they revealed more about the 'case' against Pora than the entire trial manuscript. I shake my head in bewilderment that not one NZ Judge dealing with this case vocalised any concern about what was clearly an abuse of process that at the very least should have seen the 'confession' thrown out. There is more 'dark' work in this case because when the suspension of the search for Rewa took place he continued his attacks.
DeleteHow the hell something can be 'working' when a boy ends up in prison for 2 decades for telling lies, then is unable to get any financial assistance to gain his freedom, exhausts the credibility of our Justice system. I admire those fighting for him, and others in his situation, because of their beliefs in fairness and Justice.Yet it is those that have turned a 'blind eye,' walked away in silence that rattle the cages - particularly with insulting claims that a system unable to correct itself, without any ability to look inward and reject what is wrong, failing to put things right while congratulating itself using words such as 'historical' and 'complex' that should make us all angry.
A slight correction to an otherwise very good summary of the situation Nos, Rewas two trials both returned no verdict, he was not found 'not guilty'
ReplyDeleteThanks, that's a very important difference. I could say the Jury agreed that they didn't know and that was caused by the extraordinary 'shift' in the Crown case to put a 'boy' of limited intelligence on the same page of a older, deliberate and practiced rapist who always worked along.
DeleteAn expected reaction from the tax lawyer that the system is 'working' but in reality what a joke. Poras conviction needs to be quashed completely by the PC with no retrial (which is what I believe his team are seeking) and Rewa needs to again be tried for the murder, the comments of Barry Hart, Rewas lawyer are a joke, Yes the appeal will focus on Rewa as the evidence would suggest it is around 99% probable that he is the guilty party.
ReplyDeleteI see Crown Law is truly testing how well the "system works" by appearing before the PC later in the year to "argue their case".
ReplyDeleteAll this case is proving is that the 'system' of never saying we may have got it wrong is well and truly alive and kicking.
Legal aid: the Ministry of Justice decides whether the applicant should get legal aid based on whether they think the case they have might get somewhere. So one arm of the MoJ (Crown law) prosecutes the case, 'winning' or 'losing' it, another arm evaluates the defence case to see if they should help the prosecution lose. This is expecting the MoJ to be able to dispassionately judge themselves to be wrong. There is a definite perceptible conflict of interests in that set-up!
ReplyDeleteFor proof of that, no legal aid for Bain or Lundy, both judged as unsafe convictions by the Privy Council and only able to be argued by the good will of those giving their time for free, correspond that with the money provided to The Crown in order to prove the convictions were 'safe.' Things aren't right with this and in part the tightening of Legal Aid is not only a restriction on the right to a fair trial, but also of cementing over cases like Poras. More money will be spent by The Crown on the Pora case, unlimited to some extent, but Pora will be found innocent as he is in the mind of many New Zealanders - that reflects on all of us but more so on the blindness of our Justice system.
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