Rawiri David Lawson v The Queen - [2015] NZSC 140

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW ZEALAND

SC 69/2015
[2015] NZSC 140

BETWEEN	RAWIRI DAVID LAWSON Applicant
AND	THE QUEEN Respondent

Court:	Elias CJ, William Young and Arnold JJ
Counsel:	Applicant in person K Laurenson and T P Westaway for Respondent
Judgment:	6 October 2015

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

The application for leave to appeal is dismissed.

____________________________________________________________________

REASONS

The proposed appeal

In the early hours of the morning of 16 September 2011, a window in the office of the manager of a supermarket was smashed from the outside. The office was on an upper floor and looked out over part of the roof of the supermarket. Whoever smashed the window had stood on that part of the roof to do so. The alarm system was activated but the offender was not located. At about 5.30 am a cash officer arrived at the supermarket and deactivated the alarm. Shortly afterwards, an intruder came through the broken window. He was armed with a knife and disguised with a stocking over his face. The intruder confronted the cash officer and forced her to open a safe from which he removed a little over $18,000. As a result of these events, the applicant was prosecuted for aggravated robbery and kidnapping.
A roll-up cigarette with the applicant’s DNA was found on the roof of the supermarket under the smashed window. The Crown called evidence placing the applicant in the vicinity of the supermarket at 7.30 am on the day of the robbery and the applicant was shown to have been flush with cash subsequent to the robbery. The Crown case was supplemented with propensity evidence in respect of prior offending by the applicant involving four aggravated robberies of commercial premises (one of which was a Four Square supermarket) and a 2009 burglary of a supermarket. The applicant had been sentenced to imprisonment in respect of this last offence and was released from prison in August 2011, that is the month before the offending now in issue.
The applicant was found guilty at trial[1] and his appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed.[2] He now seeks leave to appeal.
[1]Mr Lawson was subsequently sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment with a minimum term of imprisonment of four years, nine months: see R v Lawson [2013] NZHC 1150 (Mallon J).
[2]Lawson v R [2014] NZCA 463 (O’Regan P, Courtney and Clifford JJ).
The applicant’s submissions address a number of issues which we address under four headings.

How the cigarette came to be dropped, what the offender was wearing and associated fair trial issues

There were arguments at trial as to how the cigarette may have come to have been dropped. These arguments were associated with CCTV footage of the offender which suggested that he had been wearing a shirt with a buttoned down pocket. The defence theory was that as the shape of the cigarette was not distorted, it could not have been in a trouser pocket and that, if it was in the shirt,…

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.

Keep reading for free

Create a free CaseChat account to read Rawiri David Lawson v The Queen and more:

Read every judgment in full
Ask AI and get answers linked to paragraphs
See how each paragraph was cited in later cases
Download judgments as PDF or Word

Continue with Google

One click creates your free account or signs you in.

By continuing you agree to the Terms and Privacy Policy.

Details

Case: [2015] NZSC 140
Decision Date: 6 October 2015

CaseChat Overview and Summary

In Rawiri David Lawson v The Queen, the Supreme Court of New Zealand considered the applicant's application for leave to appeal against his conviction for aggravated robbery and kidnapping. The court was asked to determine whether the applicant, who was found guilty at trial and whose appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed, had grounds for leave to appeal. The applicant raised several issues, including the admissibility of evidence regarding a prior burglary, the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction, and whether there had been a shift in the Crown case regarding the clothing the offender wore.

The court first examined the applicant's claims about the circumstances surrounding the cigarette found at the crime scene and the alleged shift in the Crown case regarding the clothing worn by the offender. The court found that the Crown case did not rely on the precise mechanism by which the cigarette was dropped or the specific clothing worn by the offender. The court also found that there was no evidence of a miscarriage of justice in the handling of the alleged note passed to counsel during the prosecutor's address.

The court then addressed the admissibility of evidence concerning the 2009 burglary, which the applicant argued was not relevant to his propensity for committing aggravated robberies. The court found that the similarities in modus operandi between the 2009 burglary and the 2011 offending made the evidence relevant, and the timing of the burglary in relation to the earlier aggravated robberies and the current offending further supported its admissibility.

Finally, the court considered the sufficiency of the evidence to support the applicant's conviction. The court found that the evidence was ample, including the applicant's presence in the vicinity of the supermarket at the time of the robbery, the presence of his DNA on the cigarette found at the scene, and the timing of the burglary in relation to the other offences. The court also noted the differences between the 2009 burglary and the 2011 offending but found that these differences did not undermine the relevance of the prior conviction.

The court dismissed the applicant's application for leave to appeal, finding that the applicant's arguments did not raise any issue of public or general importance and that there was no appearance of a miscarriage of justice.

Orders