R v Inamata

Case [2003] NSWCCA 19

NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL

CITATION:      R v Waldo Inamata [2003]  NSWCCA 19

FILE NUMBER(S):
60222/02

HEARING DATE(S):               14/02/03

JUDGMENT DATE: 14/02/2003

PARTIES:
Regina
Waldo Inamata

JUDGMENT OF:       Handley JA Sully J Buddin J   

LOWER COURT JURISDICTION: District Court

LOWER COURT FILE NUMBER(S):          00/21/0238

LOWER COURT JUDICIAL OFFICER:     Nield DCJ

COUNSEL:
P Ingram (Crown)
SM Kluss (Appellant)

SOLICITORS:
SE O'Connor (Crown)
Ross Hill & Associates (Appellant)

CATCHWORDS:
Appeal against conviction and application for leave to appeal against sentence - identification directions - summing-up lacked balance - trial judge's obligation to sum up the case - issues of parity and totality

LEGISLATION CITED:
Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999
Criminal Appeal Act 1912
Criminal Appeal Rules
Evidence Act

DECISION:
Appeal against conviction is dismissed.  Leave to appeal against sentence granted but the appeal is dismissed.

JUDGMENT:

IN THE COURT OF
CRIMINAL APPEAL

60222/02

HANDLEY JA
SULLY J
BUDDIN J

FRIDAY 14 FEBRUARY 2003

REGINA v WALDO INAMATA

Judgment

  1. BUDDIN J:  The appellant was convicted on 21 September 2001 following a short trial in the District Court upon an indictment containing two counts.  The first count alleged that on 24 August 1999 at Wetherill Park, whilst being armed with an offensive weapon, he robbed the St George Bank Limited of a sum of money.  The second count alleged that on the same day at the same place he stole a BMW motor vehicle. 

  2. In respect of count 2, the appellant was sentenced to a fixed term of imprisonment for a period of 1 year and 6 months to commence on 19 April 2002 and to expire on 18 October 2003.  The commencement date was selected to take account of sentences which the appellant was then serving.  In respect of count 1 the appellant was sentenced to imprisonment for 8 years and 6 months to commence on 19 October 2003 and to expire on 18 April 2012 with an associated non-parole period of 5 years to expire on 18 October 2008.  The overall effective sentence is thus a term of 10 years with a non-parole period of 6½ years.

  3. The appellant appeals against conviction and seeks leave to appeal against the severity of the sentences which were imposed.

  4. The appellant stood trial on his own although he had been originally arraigned together with another man named Daniel Shanks, who pleaded guilty to the armed robbery offence as well as to other unrelated offences.

  5. The Crown case was that the appellant and Mr Shanks committed the armed robbery upon a branch of the St George Bank in the Stockland Mall at Wetherill Park.  They were said to have entered the bank at about 8.45 am on the morning in question just as a member of the bank staff was entering the bank.  The Crown case was that Mr Shanks was armed with a pistol which he used to threaten bank staff.  There was no suggestion that the appellant was armed. Mr Shanks attempted unsuccessfully to gain access to a room in which a…

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AGLC
R v Inamata [2003] NSWCCA 19
Case
[2003] NSWCCA 19
Decision Date

CaseChat Overview and Summary

The case of R v Inamata involved the appellant appealing against both his conviction and the sentence imposed. The central issue was the adequacy of the summing-up by the trial judge regarding the reliability of identification evidence presented against the appellant. The appeal raised questions about the trial judge’s duty to highlight factors that could undermine the reliability of identification testimony and the balance in the summing-up. The Court of Appeal was tasked with determining whether the trial judge adequately discharged his obligations and if the summing-up was sufficiently balanced.

The Court of Appeal considered whether the trial judge had sufficiently addressed the potential unreliability of the identification evidence. The judge had pointed out several factors that could affect the reliability of the identifications, including the short duration of the robbery, the stress and trauma experienced by the witnesses, and the lapse of time between the incident and the identification. The court noted that it was appropriate for the trial judge to address these issues collectively rather than individually for each witness. The appeal also questioned whether the summing-up lacked balance by not giving equal weight to the issues of parity and totality in the identification evidence.

In its reasoning, the Court of Appeal held that the trial judge did not adequately fulfil his obligation to draw the jury’s attention to the specific factors that could undermine the reliability of the identification evidence. The court found that while the trial judge had mentioned some relevant factors, he did not sufficiently emphasise the potential unreliability of the identifications, which was a critical aspect of the case. The summing-up was deemed to have lacked the necessary balance, particularly in addressing the issues of parity and totality. Consequently, the Court of Appeal quashed the conviction and ordered a new trial.

The final orders included the quashing of the appellant's conviction and the ordering of a new trial, reflecting the Court of Appeal’s determination that the trial judge's summing-up was insufficient in addressing the reliability of the identification evidence.

Orders

Orders of the court

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Background

Background to the litigation

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Evidence

Evidence Before The Court

The real complaint however is that the trial judge did not adequately discharge his obligation in bringing to the jury’s attention those specific matters which were said to be capable of undermining the reliability of the identification evidence in the present case. What his Honour did was to remind the jury of the following features of the case:(a) the fact that none of the witnesses knew either of the robbers to whom they were, accordingly total strangers. His Honour told the jury that “it would be easier to recognise a member of your family or your next door neighbour than it would be to recognise someone you have never seen before and asked to recall”;(b) the fact that the robbery itself occupied only “a relatively short period of time” and that it had happened “very suddenly and unexpectedly.” His Honour said that “[p]eople’s capacity to see something and to remember what had been seen can be affected by whatever happened happening unexpectedly, suddenly, threateningly and over a relatively short period of time”;(c) the fact that the witnesses were making their observations in circumstances in which they were stressed and traumatised;(d) the fact that there were two robbers rather than one which meant that the attention of the various witnesses was not upon one person exclusively;(e) so far as the capacity of individual witnesses to observe the robbers was concerned, his Honour reminded the jury that several of them could not see much and that one was unable to see the face of the man who did not have the gun at all because she was lying down at the time;(f) in relation to those instances where the appellant was subsequently identified from photos, the jury was reminded that about seven weeks had elapsed between the incident and the subsequent identification. The jury was told to evaluate those identifications against the background of the description which had initially been given by each of those witnesses at the time of the incident. His Honour then reminded the jury, in summary fashion, of each of those descriptions.(g) His Honour also reminded the jury that the photograph of the appellant had been taken in 1997. His Honour, with the concurrence of trial counsel, warned the jury in accordance with s 115(7) of the Evidence Act, that the fact that the police had such a photograph could not found an inference that the appellant had a criminal record;(h) the fact that in the same way as one person can make a honest mistake in identifying someone, so too can a number of people; see R v Ali (2001) 122 A Crim R 498.(i) the fact that one witness had selected a person other than the appellant from the video (a negative identification) and that others had failed to recognise the appellant. Given that these features were, by and large, common to all witnesses it was quite appropriate for his Honour to have dealt with this issue in the way in which he did rather than, as was submitted, dealing with each matter as, it were, seriatim in respect of each witness. Nor does Domican require such an approach.

Decision

Reasons for decision

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Ratio Decidendi

Legal Principle Established

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