ADC v The Queen

The High Court of Australia considered an appeal by ADC against a conviction for murder. The appellant had been found guilty of murder by a jury in the Supreme Court of New South Wales and subsequently appealed to the Court of Criminal Appeal of New South Wales, which dismissed the appeal. The High Court granted special leave to appeal.

The central legal issue before the High Court was whether the trial judge had erred in law by failing to direct the jury adequately on the defence of provocation. Specifically, the court had to determine if the judge's summing up had sufficiently explained the elements of provocation, including the requirement that the provocation must be such as to make an ordinary person, in the position of the accused, act as the accused did.

Gleeson CJ and Callinan J, in a joint judgment, held that the trial judge's directions on provocation were inadequate. They reasoned that the judge had not clearly articulated the objective element of the defence, which requires an assessment of how an ordinary person would have reacted to the provocation. The court emphasised that the jury must be instructed that the provocation must be sufficient to cause an ordinary person to lose self-control and act in the way the accused did, not merely to cause the accused to lose self-control. The appeal was allowed, the conviction was quashed, and the matter was remitted to the Supreme Court of New South Wales for a retrial.