G.S. Murphy v The Queen; L.J. Murphy v The Queen; Murdoch v The Queen

These proceedings before the High Court of Australia concerned appeals by Leslie Joseph Murphy, Michael James Murdoch, and Gary Steven Murphy against their convictions for murder. The appellants were convicted of serious offences arising from the abduction, abuse, and killing of young women in Sydney. One of the accused had pleaded guilty to the killing, while the other three, including the appellants, were tried for murder and other offences. The core of the appellants' complaint was that their convictions were unsafe due to a series of miscarriages of justice during their trial.

The primary legal issue before the High Court was whether the trial judge erred in recommencing the trial with a second jury after the first jury had been discharged due to extensive publicity concerning the criminal record of one of the accused. Specifically, the appellants argued that the judge should have either delayed the recommencement of the trial or permitted questioning of prospective jurors about their knowledge of the publicity surrounding the initial jury's discharge and the reasons for it. The appellants contended that the judge's own observation that directions could not erase the impact of the initial jury's knowledge meant that similar publicity before the second jury would also render a fair trial impossible.

The appellants submitted that the situation was analogous to the case of *Kray*, where a trial judge acceded to a request to question jurors about potential bias following highly publicised proceedings. They argued that the repeated publication of the reasons for the first jury's discharge, coupled with the judge's acknowledgment of the difficulty in erasing such information from jurors' minds, necessitated either a delay to allow the publicity to fade or the opportunity for voir dire to assess potential juror bias. The appellants' counsel asserted that the trial judge's failure to take these steps resulted in an unsafe conviction.