Posts by Damian Christie
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Cracker: Lundy and Me., in reply to Bart Janssen,
The problem for me with all those trials is that the tea table discussions often came to the opposite conclusion to that of the jury which suggests the jury saw (important) evidence we did not.
Yeah, so you see my point - all the talk of flakiness around those cases might have more to do with those ill-informed dinner table discussions, rather than a spate of particularly flaky cases.
-
Cracker: Lundy and Me., in reply to Matthew Poole,
The Bain, Watson and Lundy cases were considered flaky as the cell doors closed.
Were they? Or is it that these three trials were some of the biggest to take place since we allowed cameras in the courtroom? (It was 1995, the same year as the Bain trial, though I can't recall if cameras were there in that instance). People were able to watch the evidence unfold night after night, back and forth, and obviously many were swayed by the defense counsel arguments in those cases, even if the jury wasn't. We saw the same thing again with Ewen Macdonald recently - was this another 'flaky' case, or a damn good defense lawyer doing his job well?
-
Cracker: Lundy and Me., in reply to Tom Semmens,
The police over-reach because they think they can
I'm not necessarily saying this isn't the case, but it's important not to conflate the police with the Crown (prosecution), whose job it is, if not to 'over-reach' exactly, to put together the best interpretation of facts and events it can to achieve a conviction.
One thing Lundy didn't seem to benefit from at his first trial was a particularly robust defence. I'm not saying that's the fault of his lawyer, but from my understanding, the lack of legal aid hours to mount a murder defence in the first instance can leave something to be desired.
-
Cracker: Lundy and Me., in reply to Russell Brown,
IANAL, but I presume they could with something of the order of “but IF the time of death is presumed to be later, our evidence still shows Mr Lundy is guilty.”
Given that their job is to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt, I don't know they'd be doing them any favours taking a "but if you don't like that, how but *this* one, huh? we got dozens of these, just pick one" approach... especially as they then have to also say "disregard that stuff we said about the computer... disregard the eyewitness, she's mad... disregard etc..."
-
Cracker: Lundy and Me., in reply to David MacGregor,
t’s a bit of an Aunt Sally argument to throw in yesterday’s stabbing
I was just pulling out the most recent person I could think of who also stands accused of a crime, and is therefore "innocent". He stands accused, just like Lundy. It sounds like you have your doubts about that man's innocence? Don't leap to conclusions, you haven't heard the evidence yet, just the media reports.
No, you're the one who's twisted the legal presumption of innocence, which is about burden of proof, and tried to make it apply to the wider meaning of the word "innocent".
-
Cracker: Lundy and Me., in reply to Ian Dalziel,
Edit: in light of the times given, perhaps there was a way to make the later call, without physically being there – would depend on whether a conversation took place, I guess
He spoke to a friend about a business deal. I'm not sure given how cell towers work how he could make a call without 'physically being there'. You could suggest that never happened, and both he and Lundy were lying for some reason, but if you go down that path you could also argue that he was never in Petone, and anyone who saw him was also lying, and the prostitute never saw him, she was lying... I guess I'm saying it's never been regarded as a contentious fact in the whole thing and the 'later' explanation is a lot simpler.
-
Cracker: Lundy and Me., in reply to David MacGregor,
I took it from this statement that the patchwork of expert evidence – and I mean that simply as a number of things sewn together to make a whole – amounted to conclusive proof of guilt in your mind.
No, I was really talking about the process of trying to research a story, and how I couldn't find what I needed for a story that began "Mark Lundy is innocent", and that many of the inconsistencies in the prosecution story could be removed with a change in the hypothetical time of the murder.
The Privvy Council think he is innocent
In a very limited and legal sense of the word. In much the same way as the guy who allegedly stabbed the cop in the face yesterday is 'innocent' right now, yes, like that.
-
Cracker: Lundy and Me., in reply to Evan Yates,
the rest of the night’s events become quite feasible as outlined by the prosecution. No need for land-speed record driving
I'm not quite sure what you're saying here. Are you saying the same as I'm saying above? The rest of the night's events as outlined by the prosecution have everything taking place between two phone calls from Petone at 5.43pm and 8.28pm - that's what requires the land-speed record trip.
As I've indicated, the prosecution went to great lengths to show it happened in that timeframe. The witness. The stomach contents. The computer etc. They can't just say "oh no, we meant later" without completely invalidating much of that.
-
Cracker: Lundy and Me., in reply to David MacGregor,
but to extrapolate that into - 'Does this mean, in your opinion, they are guilty?' has no value whatsoever.
I'm not sure if you're saying that's what we were trying to do? It wasn't. I'd never ask a scientist anything other than a scientific question. "Is this, in your opinion, brain tissue?' "Is there any other type of tissue it could be?" and so forth. If I used some narrative shorthand that led you to believe otherwise, please re-read with that in mind.
-
Cracker: Lundy and Me., in reply to Ian Dalziel,
…and surely, all that indicates is that his phone was in that cell tower’s range
Actually it's based on two telephone calls he's confirmed to have made connected to those cell towers.