Norris v The Queen

Norris v The Queen concerned an appeal to the Full Court of the Supreme Court of South Australia following a jury conviction of the applicant for trafficking methylamphetamine and 4-hydroxybutanoic acid. The applicant's conviction arose from a trial where he sought to introduce a prior statement made by a co-offender to the police regarding the ownership of the drugs at the time of their arrest. The trial judge disallowed a question intended to elicit this statement, leading to the applicant's appeal.

The central legal issue before the Full Court was whether the trial judge erred in disallowing the question seeking to introduce the co-offender's prior consistent statement to the police. Specifically, the court had to determine the relevance and admissibility of such a statement in the context of the co-offender's trial testimony and the applicant's defence.

The Full Court held that permission to appeal should be refused. The court reasoned that the co-offender's evidence in court was that she alone possessed the drugs and that the applicant was not in possession of them and they did not belong to him. In this context, any prior statement made by the co-offender to the police that was consistent with this in-court testimony could not be regarded as relevant. Furthermore, the court affirmed the general principle that evidence of a prior consistent statement is typically admissible only to rebut an allegation of recent invention. As the defence had not put an allegation of recent invention to the co-offender during cross-examination, the prior consistent statement was neither relevant nor admissible.