Andrew L. Urban.
As learned legal practitioners and academics will tell you, there are convincing arguments for both jury trials and judge-only trials. There is one important difference – judges must give reasons for their decisions – juries must not. On the other hand, juries are more representative … Continue reading
If silence is complicity – in the face of wrong doing – accepting injustice in the course of seeking justice is worse, argues ANDREW L. URBAN, in response to Theo Theophanous, commentator and former Victorian government minister, who says it is ‘regrettable but necessary’. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban.
The legal establishment in Tasmania wants to keep Meaghan Vass ‘off the boat’, metaphorically speaking, because her eye witness testimony of Bob Chappell’s murder on Four Winds contradicts the prosecution’s case against Sue Neill-Fraser. But then how to explain why a terrified young woman would willingly put herself through emotional hell for years and put herself potentially in harm’s way? Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
The broken promise that caused Meaghan Vass to contradict herself in court and damage the appeal against the murder conviction of Sue Neill-Fraser, as revealed by Vass confidante, Andrea (Andy) Brown. Continue reading
You could say it was a case of the eye witness from hell, whose vision of the ‘devil’s presence’ notwithstanding, helped convict Derek Bromley of murder in 1984. How could it have happened? Bromley’s friend and supporter ROBYN MILERA explains in her blog Bringing Justice (excerpt below). That conviction still devils Bromley to this day, after South Australia’s Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed Bromley’s latest appeal. But doing so, the Court “fundamentally failed to pay due regard to the rule of law,” as BOB MOLES and BIBI SANGHA revealed (excerpts below). Continue reading
A buzz of conversation swirled on our comments thread since the March 10, 2021 publication of our story, Sue Neill-Fraser – conviction rests on dark fantasy, raising a red flag about the blue rag from the crime scene on Four Winds, evidence that went missing … Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban.
As the late author and thinker Christopher Hitchens famously noted, ‘What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.’ Not in the Tasmanian legal system, it can’t. Hence the tortuous, 11-year legal journey of Sue Neill-Fraser, convicted in 2010 of murdering her partner Bob Chappell on Australia Day 2009. Now it’s up to the three appeal judges. So while we wait … Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban
Science – the word, that is – has been bandied about a lot lately, from climate change arguments to Covid restrictions and in the criminal justice system. Now the latter faces a major test: will our legal structures ‘follow the science’ and accept that The System got it wrong, Kathleen Folbigg did not murder her four babies? Will she be freed? Or will proper science be defied? Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban.
On Tuesday, DPP Daryl Coates SC, from whom the soured milk of human unkindness oozed like puss, was relentless in exploiting the vulnerability of Meaghan Vass and her distressing emotional unraveling to achieve his objective: damage or destroy the credibility of her testimony in the appeal court. Continue reading
Andrew L. Urban.
Sue Neill-Fraser’s legal team conceded before lunch on Day 2 of the appeal against her murder convction, that Meaghan Vass, highly stressed and agitated from the beginning, was delivering testimony during cross examination that would not be considered reliable, removing her testimony from the grounds of appeal – and focusing on the fresh new DNA evidence. Continue reading