Robert Alfred Stevenson v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW ZEALAND

SC 66/2014
[2014] NZSC 128

BETWEEN	ROBERT ALFRED STEVENSON Applicant
AND	CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS Respondent

Court:	McGrath, Glazebrook and Arnold JJ
Counsel:	Applicant in Person
Judgment:	18 September 2014

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

The application for recall is dismissed.

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REASONS

The applicant is serving a sentence of sixteen years’ imprisonment following his conviction for sexual offending. His appeal against conviction was dismissed by the Court of Appeal.[1] He did not seek leave to bring a further appeal but has sought to challenge his imprisonment by twice applying for writs of habeas corpus. These applications were dismissed by the High Court[2] whose decisions were upheld by the Court of Appeal.[3] This Court dismissed an application for leave to appeal against that judgment, holding that the habeas corpus applications were misconceived.[4]
[1]S v R [2013] NZCA 179.
[2]S v Chief Executive of Department for Corrections [2014] NZHC 1157; and Stevenson v Attorney-General [2014] NZHC 1232.
[3]Stevenson vChief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2014] NZCA 308.
[4]Stevenson v Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections [2014] NZSC 120 at [5].
The applicant now seeks recall of this Court’s judgment on the ground that it is in error and contrary to statutory and case law. He does not however advance any tenable basis for the Court to recall the judgment. The application for recall is accordingly dismissed.

CaseChat Overview and Summary

In the Supreme Court of New Zealand, Robert Alfred Stevenson, a prisoner serving a sentence for sexual offences, applied for a writ of recall against his continued detention. His previous appeals and habeas corpus applications had been dismissed by lower courts, and his application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court was also denied. Stevenson sought to challenge the correctness of the Supreme Court's decision on the grounds that it was in error and contrary to statutory and case law. The court was required to determine whether there was sufficient grounds to recall and reconsider its previous judgment.

The legal issue before the Supreme Court was whether there was a basis for recalling the Court's earlier judgment that dismissed Stevenson's application for leave to appeal. The Court had to examine whether the grounds provided by Stevenson for recall were tenable and whether they demonstrated that the previous judgment was in error. This involved reviewing the previous decisions and the arguments presented by Stevenson to determine if they warranted a reconsideration of the case.

The Court found that Stevenson did not provide any tenable basis for the recall of the previous judgment. The Court held that the habeas corpus applications were misconceived and that there were no valid grounds for reconsideration of the decision. The Court noted that the applications were not supported by any substantive legal argument that could lead to a different outcome. Consequently, the application for recall was dismissed, and the previous judgment was upheld.

The final orders of the Court were to dismiss the application for recall, confirming that there was no error in the previous judgment and that the applicant's continued detention was lawful. The Court's decision reinforced the finality of its earlier ruling and affirmed the correctness of the lower courts' decisions regarding Stevenson's applications.

CaseChat Overview and Summary

Orders of the court

Background to the litigation

Evidence Before The Court

Reasons for decision

Legal Principle Established