PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "I didn't report on Lundy's retrial, but watched much of it from the
public gallery. The best part of a week was spent on the technique and
it was dense scientific argument any normal person, such as a juror,
would surely struggle to make head nor tail of. Trial judge, Justice Simon France, handed the jury a document
summarising the MRNA evidence and lawyers' comments about it. France
told jurors the Crown case did not rest on MRNA and the Supreme Court
said this was made clear. The Supreme Court also found the MRNA evidence
was subject to intense defence expert criticism, something jurors could
have considered. The Court of Appeal subsequently ruled the MRNA evidence inadmissible –
effectively saying a huge part of the retrial should never have
happened – but ruled over evidence still strongly pointed to Lundy's
guilt, so the convictions stand. The Supreme Court agreed, but surely there is weight to the argument of
Lundy's legal team that the inclusion of MRNA evidence was such a flaw
in the trial that it was unfair. Without being in the jury room, how do we know what importance members
placed on the evidence? Given the handout from the judge, it's safe to
assume it wasn't ignored and would surely have at least built on the
immunohistochemistry and DNA evidence in the jury's considerations."
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GIST: After yet another rejection from the courts, Mark Lundy's legal team
issued a statement vowing the fight to clear his name will not stop. And clearing Lundy's name is a Herculean task. The former salesman is
serving a life sentence for murdering his wife Christine and 7-year-old
daughter Amber in the most brutal of circumstances in their Palmerston
North home. Lundy has been found guilty – twice. But has the man whose show of
public grief at Christine and Amber's funeral is seared into New
Zealand's collective memory been the victim of less than robust science? Evidence suggests so and the only way to properly settle if Lundy was
responsible for the grisly deaths of two innocent people on a wintry
August 2000 night is for him to face trial for a third time – an option
the Supreme Court dismissed when upholding Lundy's convictions.
Lundy's legal team appropriately says his case has "troubled" the country's legal system for nearly two decades.
The first trial he faced in Palmerston North in 2002 was a farce.
Painted into a corner by shonky time-of-death evidence that said
Christine and Amber were killed shortly after 7pm, the Crown was forced
to argue that in the space of about three hours Lundy drove from
Wellington, where he was on business, to Palmerston North, killed his
family, cleaned up and drove back at the speed of light yet unnoticed by
anyone.
Incidentally, Dr James Pang, the man who deduced the time of death
based on Christine and Amber's stomach contents, retracted his estimate
they died about an hour after dinner. At Lundy's retrial Pang instead
said he couldn't say with certainty when they died.
Somehow the jury bought the Crown theory, although maybe its members
didn't believe the time of death and were instead persuaded by Texan Dr
Rodney Miller and his immunohistochemistry test that concluded a shirt
found in Lundy's car had brain or spinal cord matter on it.
The technique had never been used forensically for a criminal trial
before, but for some reason wasn't robustly challenged by Lundy's
lawyers at either of his trials.
Immunohistochemistry cannot identify from where or who the central
nervous system came. At the same spots on the shirt, however, were also
traces of Christine Lundy's DNA. "No husband should have their wife's
brain on their shirt," Crown prosecutor Philip Morgan, QC, told the jury
at Lundy's 2015 retrial.
At that trial, the Crown called evidence from analysis of messenger RNA (MRNA).
From this, Dr Laetitia Sijen said the tissue was more likely human than
from other species, although the defence attacked this evidence as
unreliable and argued the tissue on the shirt could be from elsewhere,
such as from food. The Crown said this was "silly" and the Supreme Court
said there wasn't a narrative to support this.
I didn't report on Lundy's retrial, but watched much of it from the
public gallery. The best part of a week was spent on the technique and
it was dense scientific argument any normal person, such as a juror,
would surely struggle to make head nor tail of.
Trial judge, Justice Simon France, handed the jury a document
summarising the MRNA evidence and lawyers' comments about it. France
told jurors the Crown case did not rest on MRNA and the Supreme Court
said this was made clear. The Supreme Court also found the MRNA evidence
was subject to intense defence expert criticism, something jurors could
have considered.
The Court of Appeal subsequently ruled the MRNA evidence inadmissible –
effectively saying a huge part of the retrial should never have
happened – but ruled over evidence still strongly pointed to Lundy's
guilt, so the convictions stand.
The Supreme Court agreed, but surely there is weight to the argument of
Lundy's legal team that the inclusion of MRNA evidence was such a flaw
in the trial that it was unfair.
Without being in the jury room, how do we know what importance members
placed on the evidence? Given the handout from the judge, it's safe to
assume it wasn't ignored and would surely have at least built on the
immunohistochemistry and DNA evidence in the jury's considerations.
Morgan also told 2015 jurors Lundy would have been "the unluckiest man
in the world" to have fresh animal central nervous system tissue on his
shirt as well as snot or mucus accounting for Christine's DNA – the
defence argued the DNA could have come from Christine sneezing.
Morgan is right to say Lundy is unlucky. He's faced two trials hinging
on what euphemistically have been referred to as "novel" scientific
techniques.
As tough as it would be on Christine and Amber's family, Lundy should
face a new trial untainted by evidence that shouldn't have been
included.
The Supreme Court ruling denies him this."
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The entire commentary can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices.""
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20191210/da-drops-murder-charge-against-taunton-man-who-served-35-years-for-1979-slaying
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