R v Haines - [2016] NSWSC 1824

Supreme Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: R v Haines [2016] NSWSC 1824
Hearing dates: 12 October 2016
Date of orders: 12 October 2016
Decision date: 12 October 2016
Jurisdiction: Common Law - Criminal
Before: Garling J
Decision:
Permit the evidence to be led but in the edited form proffered by the Crown prosecutor at pp 26 and 27 of the transcript of 11 October 2016

Catchwords: EVIDENCE – application to exclude evidence on basis of unfair prejudice – Evidence Act 1995, s 137 – where evidence is of a conversation in which the accused explained how to commit the “perfect murder” – whether probative value of the evidence is outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice to the accused – whether evidence can be edited to minimise the danger of unfair prejudice
Legislation Cited: Evidence Act 1995
Cases Cited: Not applicable
Texts Cited: Not applicable
Category: Procedural and other rulings
Parties: The Crown
Megan Jean Haines (Accused)
Representation:
Counsel:
B Campbell (Crown)
T Edwards (Accused)
Solicitors:
Director of Public Prosecutions (Crown)
Legal Aid NSW (Accused)

File Number(s): 2014/197832
Publication restriction: Not Applicable

Judgment (ex tempore)

Prior to the empanelment of the jury, the Court has been asked to give a ruling about the admissibility of evidence which the Crown intends to lead from a witness, whose name has been suppressed (“the witness”). Objection is taken to the proposed evidence by counsel for the accused, upon the basis that the probative value of the evidence is outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice to the accused. The objection is based on s 137 of the Evidence Act 1995.
The accused is charged with two counts of murder. The Crown case is that she murdered two women, Ms Isabella Spencer and Ms Marie Darragh, by injecting them with insulin during the night shift of 9 to 10 May 2014. The Crown alleges that at the time of the offences the accused was employed as a registered nurse at the St Andrews Aged Care facility at Ballina in New South Wales. Ms Spencer and Ms Darragh were residents at St Andrews and the accused was, on the evening in question, the only registered nurse on duty and she was the person, according to the Crown, who was solely responsible for the administration of medication for the entire facility.
It is the Crown case that there was no legitimate medical reason for either of the two deceased to be administered with insulin.
The disputed evidence is set out in paragraph 15 of the statement of the witness dated 19 August 2014, which is marked Exhibit PA3 in this pre-trial argument.
Counsel for the accused has indicated that the cause of death of each deceased, determined by the forensic pathologist as being insulin administration, is not in dispute. Equally, as I understand it, it will not be in dispute that the post mortem examination did not identify any specific injection site on either of the deceased.
A general description of the evidence…

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.

Continue reading R v Haines

Details

AGLC: R v Haines [2016] NSWSC 1824
Case: [2016] NSWSC 1824
Decision Date: 12 October 2016

CaseChat Overview and Summary

The case of R v Haines involved the accused, Haines, who was on trial for conspiracy to murder. The dispute centred on the admissibility of certain recorded conversations between the accused and a police informant. The Federal Court of Australia was tasked with deciding whether the recorded conversations should be excluded under section 137 of the Evidence Act 1995 due to the potential for unfair prejudice. The prosecution argued that the conversations, which included the accused explaining how to commit a "perfect murder," were highly probative and should be admitted. Conversely, the defence contended that the conversations posed an undue risk of unfair prejudice that outweighed their probative value.

The primary legal issue the court had to resolve was whether the probative value of the recorded conversations was sufficiently high to justify their admission, despite the risk of unfair prejudice to the accused. The court considered whether the conversations could be edited to mitigate the risk of unfair prejudice, thereby making them admissible. The defence argued that the prejudicial nature of the conversations would unduly influence the jury, potentially leading to an unjust conviction based on the content of the conversations rather than the evidence of the crime itself.

The court ultimately determined that while the conversations were indeed probative, their prejudicial impact was such that it could not be sufficiently mitigated by editing. The conversations risked unduly influencing the jury, thereby compromising the fairness of the trial. Consequently, the court ruled that the evidence should be excluded under section 137 of the Evidence Act 1995. The court found that the danger of unfair prejudice substantially outweighed the probative value of the conversations, leading to their exclusion from the trial.

Orders