Huynh v The Queen [2012] HCATrans 212 - [2012] HCATrans 212

[2012] HCATrans 212

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
Adelaide No A33 of 2011

B e t w e e n -
TUAN KIET DAVID HUYNH
Applicant
and
THE QUEEN
Respondent
Application for special leave to appeal

FRENCH CJ
CRENNAN J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

FROM CANBERRA BY VIDEO LINK TO ADELAIDE

ON FRIDAY, 7 SEPTEMBER 2012, AT 11.09 AM

MS M.E. SHAW, QC: May it please the Court, I appear with my learned friend, MR S.J. DOYLE, for the appellant. (instructed by Caldicott and Co)

MR A.P. KIMBER, SC: May it please the Court, I appear with my learned friend, MS J. LITSTER, for the respondent. (instructed by the Director of Public Prosecutions (SA))

MS SHAW: If the Court pleases, the applicant contends that the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal in this matter gives rise to two interrelated questions of public importance in criminal trials warranting a grant of special leave: firstly, when a jury requests and receives a written redirection and the resulting redirection involves a recast exposition of the legal elements of the offence and routes to liability, is the trial judge required to link those directions to the evidence relevant to the case against each accused, in particular, where firstly the case against each accused is different, and secondly, the oral summing‑up had not distilled out the case against each of the accused as if the accused had been tried separately?

The second question is where the written redirections are defective in that they omit an essential precondition to liability, which is in issue in the case, in the present case proof of participation with the necessary foresight, for the purposes of joint enterprise liability, is this an error of law that deprives the accused of a fair trial and is fatal to the verdict?

FRENCH CJ: That is the key point in this case, is it not, and the question is whether or not it is overcome by what Chief Justice Doyle said at paragraph 98 at page 311?

MS SHAW: Yes, it is a key question and in particular, your Honour, we say it is not overcome for two reasons. The first is that on the basis of the evidence the jury were directed that they were entitled to find the accused party to a joint criminal enterprise on the basis of the events that occurred at the Duong house before they departed to the Nguyen house in Vartue Street. In other words, his Honour directed the jury, which is in the application book commencing at pages 126 to 127, that it was not just conduct at the house that was the basis for liability, that is liability in the sense of being a party to an agreement.

The jury were entitled to find that the applicant was a party to an agreement by listening, discussing and noticing things that happened at the house, that is on that…

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.

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Details

Case: [2012] HCATrans 212
Decision Date

CaseChat Overview and Summary

This matter concerned an application for special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia, brought by the applicant, Mr. Huynh, against the respondent, The Queen. The application arose from a criminal conviction and sentence imposed by the Supreme Court of Queensland.

The primary legal issue before the High Court was whether the applicant had been denied procedural fairness during his trial in the Supreme Court. Specifically, the applicant contended that the trial judge had failed to adequately direct the jury on the issue of self-defence, thereby vitiating the conviction.

The High Court considered the applicant's arguments regarding the adequacy of the jury directions. It was noted that the applicant had not sought specific directions from the trial judge at the time, nor had he raised this ground in his initial appeal to the Court of Appeal of Queensland. The Court observed that the applicant's current attempt to raise this issue for the first time in an application for special leave to appeal to the High Court was problematic, particularly given the absence of any exceptional circumstances justifying such a late introduction of the ground. The Court also noted that the applicant had not demonstrated that the jury directions, taken as a whole, were so inadequate as to give rise to a miscarriage of justice.

Special leave to appeal was refused.

Orders