R v Von Heytmanek

The appellant, Von Heytmanek, was convicted by a majority of the first count of rape and acquitted by majority of the second count of rape by a jury in the District Court. The verdicts were inconsistent, and the appellant appealed against his conviction. The grounds for appeal were that the jury might have failed to consider the doubt they held in relation to the second count when considering the first count due to a direction given by the trial judge. The nature of the direction was to consider each count separately. The appellant contended that this direction caused the jury to ignore the doubt they had on the second count when it considered count 1.

The court had to determine whether the verdicts were inconsistent and whether the "separate consideration" direction might have caused the jury to ignore the doubt it had on the second count when it considered count 1. The court found that the verdicts were not inconsistent and that the direction could not have deflected the jury from the correct approach. The court held that the direction was to ensure that in a case where there is more than one charge, the jury considers the elements of each and pays particular regard to the evidence going to prove those elements; as opposed to any process of extrapolating from an acceptance of the thrust of the prosecution case or from a general acceptance of the honesty of the main prosecution witness.

The court dismissed the appeal and held that the verdicts can be logically explained. There is no reason to apprehend that the jury undertook an unrealistic exercise of attempting to divide the complainant’s credibility as between the two counts. The direction did not literally require them to do that and the facts of the matter as a whole do not disclose any indication that they must have done so. The court also held that it was inconceivable that whatever doubt was entertained with respect to count 2 was not given such weight as was called for when count 1 was determined.

The final order was that the appeal was dismissed.