R v Tamanui

In the case of R v Tamanui, the appellant, Barney Tamanui, was convicted by a jury in the District Court at Hamilton on two counts of rape and one count of indecent assault. Tamanui was subsequently sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. He appealed against his conviction, arguing that the failure to call character evidence at his trial resulted in a miscarriage of justice. The appeal was heard by the Court of Appeal of New Zealand, with William Young P, Randerson, and Harrison JJ presiding. Counsel for the appellant was W C Pyke, and for the Crown, K Raftery.

The primary legal issue in this case was whether the failure to call character evidence at the trial led to a miscarriage of justice. Tamanui had a conviction for forgery from 1977, but no other convictions, making him a man of good character. There were several individuals who could have given character evidence for him, but none were called at trial. The Court concluded that in a "she says: he says" case, such as this one, character evidence was potentially of high significance, and it was incumbent on the defence counsel to take a more proactive line than he did. The Court found that it was not satisfactory for the issue to be left hanging and that the failure of the appellant to come up with witnesses prior to the trial should have suggested to the counsel that there had been a misunderstanding. The Court also noted that the significance of the evidence had to be discussed with the appellant, and if the gathering of the evidence was to be left to the appellant, counsel should have checked on the progress and made inquiries if no character witnesses materialised.

The Court of Appeal found that the failure to call character evidence led to a miscarriage of justice, and therefore the appeal was allowed, and the convictions were quashed. The Court also directed a retrial and made an order prohibiting the publication of the judgment and any part of the proceedings (other than the result) in news media or on the internet or other publicly accessible databases until the final disposition of the trial. Publication in Law Reports or Law Digests was permitted.