Mansell v The State of Western Australia [No 3]

The appeal in Mansell v The State of Western Australia [No 3] before Pullin JA in the Court of Appeal of Western Australia involves Cameron James Mansell, the appellant, appealing against the State of Western Australia, the respondent. The appeal concerns the appellant's criminal conviction and the procedural aspects of the case, particularly the admissibility of additional evidence during the appeal hearing. The court was required to decide on several applications filed by the appellant seeking to adduce additional evidence at the hearing of the appeal, in accordance with the provisions of the Criminal Appeals Act 2004 (WA) and the Supreme Court (Court of Appeal) Rules 2005 (WA).

Pullin JA addressed the applications on the papers, examining each one in turn to determine whether the appellant could adduce additional evidence at the hearing of the appeal. The court considered the statutory and rule provisions, along with relevant case law, to assess the admissibility of the proposed evidence. The court dismissed some applications outright, such as those that sought to adduce evidence already deemed irrelevant or inadmissible, or those that were dependent on grounds of appeal that had been dismissed. For other applications, the court partially dismissed them and granted leave for the appellant to include certain documents in a supplementary application book, referred to as the 'yellow application book', with the understanding that the relevance and admissibility of the evidence would be determined at the hearing of the appeal.

In summary, the court dismissed several applications for the adduction of additional evidence, either because the evidence was irrelevant or because the applications did not comply with the procedural requirements. However, the court granted leave for some documents to be included in the yellow application book, with the condition that the admissibility of the evidence would be assessed during the hearing of the appeal. This decision ensures that the court maintains control over the scope and relevance of the evidence presented during the appeal, while also providing the appellant with an opportunity to argue for the admissibility of certain documents at the appropriate stage of the proceedings.