Michaelides v The Queen

Michaelides appealed to the High Court of Australia after his conviction for a criminal offence. The appeal was brought on the ground that the jury's verdict was unreasonable or could not be supported having regard to the evidence.

The central legal issue before the High Court was the correct application of the test established in *M v The Queen* (1994) 181 CLR 487 when assessing whether a jury verdict is unreasonable or unsupported by evidence. Specifically, the Court considered whether it was an error for an appellate court to frame its assessment by asking whether the jury "must have had sufficient doubt" about the complainant's evidence to warrant an acquittal.

French CJ and Crennan J held that the test in *M v The Queen* requires an appellate court to determine whether, on the evidence, no reasonable jury, acting according to the law, could have found the accused guilty. The question of whether a jury "must have had sufficient doubt" was considered an inappropriate formulation, as it shifts the focus from the sufficiency of the evidence to support a guilty verdict to the presence of doubt. The Court affirmed that the appellate court's task is to assess whether the evidence, when viewed in the light most favourable to the prosecution, was capable of supporting the guilty verdict. Special leave to appeal was refused.