Dunrobin v The Queen - [2013] HCATrans 23

[2013] HCATrans 023

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
Brisbane No B64 of 2012

B e t w e e n -
SHANNON ROBERT DUNROBIN
Applicant
and
THE QUEEN
Respondent
Application for special leave to appeal

FRENCH CJ
HAYNE J
CRENNAN J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

FROM CANBERRA BY VIDEO LINK TO BRISBANE

ON FRIDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2013, AT 12.00 PM

MR P.J. CALLAGHAN, SC: May it please the Court, I appear with MR J.J. ALLEN for the applicant. (instructed by Legal Aid (Qld))

MR M.R. BYRNE, SC: May it please the Court, I appear for the respondent. (instructed by Director of Public Prosecutions (Qld))

FRENCH CJ: Yes, Mr Callaghan.

MR CALLAGHAN: The applicant’s contention is that the judgment of the Court of Appeal is so flawed that it cannot escape the attention of this Court. Two fundamental flaws are conceded by the respondent to exist, but the applicant submits that the Court would not have its attention diverted from the case by the “confess and avoid” approach suggested by the respondent.

The court’s treatment of count 3 betrays a failure to perform an independent assessment of the evidence. The affirmation of count 4 by reference to the wrong evidence is not something which can be sanctioned on the basis suggested by the respondent who says that you can affirm the conviction because the evidence which ought to have been reviewed was of the same quality, in effect, applying some sort of proviso to a judgment in which the Court of Appeal has not discharged the duty cast upon it by this Court.

There are two problems with attempting to quarantine the court’s errors in that way. The first is that the errors which are conceded to exist had an interactive effect with each other and infect other parts of the judgment. The second problem is that these errors reflect only part of a wider concern about the approach of the court to the question of whether these verdicts were unreasonable.

HAYNE J: Assume for the purposes of debate that the general proposition you make has weight. What would we do about counts 1 and 2? Counts 1 and 2, at least on one possible point of view, would appear to stand apart from count 3 on one side, but counts 4 to 7 on the other?

MR CALLAGHAN: I can see why your Honour would say that, but our complaint is about the whole process by which the court reviewed these convictions and our submission is that you could not be confident that the whole of the evidence had been reviewed as it was required to be. I can illustrate that by the first of the propositions which I was about to make, that is to say the way that the errors relate to each other and infect other parts of the judgment.

Perhaps the best point in response to your Honour’s query might be made by…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

Continue reading Dunrobin v The Queen

Details

AGLC: Dunrobin v The Queen [2013] HCATrans 023
Case: [2013] HCATrans 23
Decision Date

CaseChat Overview and Summary

The High Court of Australia heard an appeal from a decision of the Supreme Court of Queensland in the matter of *Dunrobin v The Queen*. The appellant, Dunrobin, was convicted of a number of offences, including murder, and appealed against his conviction.

The central legal issue before the High Court was whether the trial judge had erred in admitting certain evidence, specifically a confession made by the appellant to police. The appellant argued that the confession was involuntary and should have been excluded under the common law rule against admitting involuntary confessions, or alternatively, under s 86 of the *Uniform Evidence Law* (Qld).

The High Court considered the principles governing the admissibility of confessions, particularly the requirement that a confession must be voluntary. Their Honours examined the circumstances surrounding the appellant's confession, including the length of questioning, the appellant's state of mind, and the conduct of the police officers. The Court affirmed that a confession is involuntary if it is procured by means of an untrue representation or by unfair or improper pressure. Applying these principles, the Court found that the confession was not involuntary and that the trial judge had not erred in admitting it.

The appeal was dismissed.

Orders