Andrew L. Urban
What reforms has the criminal justice system undertaken in the wake of the wrongful convictions decades ago of Lindy Chamberlain, Derek Bromley, Henry Keogh, Andrew Mallard, Gordon Wood and – we say, Sue Neill-Fraser in 2010, Robert Xie in 2017 and Noel Greenaway in 2019? We have to conclude that the answer is: none. Continue reading
Public suspicion can (mis)lead courts & juries to miscarriages of justice, as contributor PETER GILL finds. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban’s forthcoming book, FRAMED, about the wrongful conviction of Robert Xie, shines a light on several serious flaws undermining the conviction. Here are a couple of examples that show questionable behaviour by police, prosecution, judge and jury. Continue reading
Subtitled “How the legal system framed Robert Xie for the Lin family murders”, Urban’s latest book tells the astonishing true story of how a weak circumstantial case plus a combination of incompetence and unethical behaviour throughout the legal system, from the street to the bench, led to Xie’s convictions. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
With a combination of incompetence and unethical behaviour, the legal system has utterly failed to deliver justice and to correct its mistakes in these three examples of wrongful murder convictions, according to our investigations. Continue reading
This article was published at Fr. Gordon MacRae’s blog in 2023. It sat there for over a year entirely unnoticed. Then on Wednesday February 12, 2024, its author, CLAIRE BEST emailed a link to it to the head of a New Hampshire coalition against corruption in the courts. It has since attracted world wide attention. Continue reading
Detectives from the Financial Crimes Squad have charged seven people following the discovery of fraudulent sexual abuse compensation claims in a scheme which has paid out over $1 billion in claims to date. Continue reading
This 25:27 minute podcast explores the complex case of Noel Greenaway, a former school superintendent accused of decades-old abuse, highlighting the challenges of balancing victim belief with the presumption of innocence.
Andrew L. Urban
An article compiled by AI states that “Steven Fennell is suing the Queensland government and police for malicious prosecution, misfeasance in public office, and abuse of process. Fennell was wrongfully convicted of murdering his grandmother, Mrs Watson, and spent time in prison. In September 2019, the High Court of Australia quashed his convictions.” But Mrs Watson was not his grandmother. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
There should be an equivalent of the first principle of the doctors’ Hippocratic Oath for lawyers and judges – the entire legal system in fact: ‘first, do no harm.’ But there isn’t. For example, in the case of R v RB, NSW District Court judge Sean Grant explained that section 293 of the Criminal Procedure Act prevented a jury from being told that a complainant in a sexual assault prosecution was a compulsive liar. Continue reading