Rich v The Queen

In the case of Rich v The Queen, the applicant, who had been convicted of murder and armed robbery, applied for a new trial and for leave to appeal against his conviction and sentence. The High Court of Australia dismissed both the application for a new trial and the application for leave to appeal. The applicant argued that there were numerous grounds for a new trial, including the admission of hearsay evidence, the failure to warn the jury adequately about the risks of relying on co-offenders' statements, and the potential contamination of the jury selection process. The court considered these arguments and others, including the admissibility of unlawfully obtained evidence and whether the judge had erred in sentencing.

The legal issues before the court included whether the fresh evidence the applicant sought to introduce was available at the time of the trial with reasonable diligence, and whether this evidence might have led the jury to a different verdict. The court also had to consider whether the jury's constitution was vitiated by the judge's order that members of the first, discharged, jury return to the panel from which the second jury was selected. The court further examined whether the judge had failed to warn the jury sufficiently of the risks of relying on the evidence of co-offenders and whether the judge had erred in sentencing by not making sufficient allowance for the criminality common to both the murder and the armed robbery.

The court found that the applicant had not satisfied the threshold for a new trial as set out in Gallagher v R. The fresh evidence was either not new or not credible, and even if it had been admitted, it was unlikely to have led the jury to a different verdict. The court also found that there was no contamination of the jury selection process, and that the judge had adequately warned the jury about the risks of relying on the co-offenders' statements. The court further found that the judge had not erred in sentencing and that there was no double punishment. Accordingly, the applications for leave to appeal against conviction and sentence were dismissed.

The court made no orders as to costs.