QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Flinders University legal academic Bob Moles said he was not aware of any other case in the Commonwealth where a prisoner had insisted on his innocence for as long as Bromley, who has spent 39 of his 69 years behind bars. He said Bromley’s claim to innocence was made more compelling by the fact that he could have walked free 16 years ago if he had simply admitted to the crime as a matter of convenience. “I remember saying to Derek years ago that he could make all this go away with the stroke of a pen if he just signed a piece of paper confessing his guilt,” Dr Moles told The Australian. “He was adamant that he would not do that because he could not lose the respect and support of his family or damage their name. Most importantly he did not want to do it because he insists that he is innocent.”
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Dr Moles said one of the key failings of the evidence presented by Dr Manock in the Bromley trial was that it came from an itinerant man suffering profound mental illness whose claims about the incident that night should have been thrown out of court. The man was suffering from both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, was having both audible and visual hallucinations on the night of Docoza’s death, and had described himself to police as both “the king of Adelaide” and also falsely claimed to be an A-grade state footballer. Bromley’s case was heard by the Court of Criminal Appeal four years ago during which eight expert witnesses gave evidence. Five of them were psychiatrists giving evidence in relation to the witness and all five agreed that the way in which this evidence was presented by Dr Manock at the trial was misleading. “We had four experts for Mr Bromley and one expert appointed by the Crown, and even the Crown’s expert agreed with the defence experts,” Dr Moles said. “But at the appeal, the Crown refused to call their own expert.” Dr Moles said he was heartened that the High Court had agreed to look at the case and believed the evidentiary flaws and the broader concerns around Dr Manock’s qualifications and the reliability of his evidence meant the guilty verdict should be overturned."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Mr Pangallo has claimed under parliamentary privilege that he suspected many in the South Australian legal system did not want the case reopened because of the ramifications it could have for other cases that involved the evidence of Dr Manock. “I am not exaggerating when I say this, but everybody working in the criminal justice system in this state – from senior police and lawyers to judges and retired judges – knows about it,” he said. “Yet they remain totally mute because they realise it would unearth a huge can of worms, damaging big reputations in legal and law enforcement circles in the process and subjecting SA taxpayers to massive compensation claims. “I can guarantee you no other state in this country would ever tolerate it, like we saw with the swift action taken by the Queensland government after the appalling failures of its forensic science lab were exposed by The Australian. “It demands a royal commission no less. But who has the guts to do it?”
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STORY: Why Derek Bromley won't leave prison," by Columnist David Penberthy, published by The Weekend Australian, on April 16, 2023. (David Penberthy is a columnist with The Advertiser and Sunday Mail, and also co-hosts the FIVEaa Breakfast show. He's a former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Mail and news.com.au.)
GIST: "A jailed Aboriginal man who has spent almost 40 years insisting he is innocent of murder will have his final chance at having his conviction overturned in the High Court next month.
Derek Bromley was convicted and imprisoned in 1984 for the murder of Stephen Docoza, whose body was found floating in Adelaide’s River Torrens.
Bromley was sentenced to 36 years’ jail, which was subsequently reduced to 24 years under truth-in-sentencing reforms and has been eligible for parole since 2006.
But he has steadfastly refused to admit his guilt for the crime, rendering him ineligible for parole and leaving him behind bars at South Australia’s low-security Cadell Prison.
Bromley’s supporters say he is a model prisoner who has been allowed to leave jail to work as a volunteer firefighter, even going to Kangaroo Island to help fight the 2019-2020 bushfire.
His co-accused, John Karpany, was also convicted over Docoza’s death despite also insisting he played no part in and had no knowledge of the murder. However, he walked from jail in 2004 after expressing remorse for the murder once he became eligible for parole.
Bromley’s case is being championed by a senior legal academic at Flinders University and an independent South Australian MP, who argue the case has major flaws on account of its links to discredited former state chief forensic pathologist Colin Manock.
Flinders University legal academic Bob Moles said he was not aware of any other case in the Commonwealth where a prisoner had insisted on his innocence for as long as Bromley, who has spent 39 of his 69 years behind bars.
He said Bromley’s claim to innocence was made more compelling by the fact that he could have walked free 16 years ago if he had simply admitted to the crime as a matter of convenience.
“I remember saying to Derek years ago that he could make all this go away with the stroke of a pen if he just signed a piece of paper confessing his guilt,” Dr Moles told The Australian.
“He was adamant that he would not do that because he could not lose the respect and support of his family or damage their name. Most importantly he did not want to do it because he insists that he is innocent.”
Dr Moles said one of the key failings of the evidence presented by Dr Manock in the Bromley trial was that it came from an itinerant man suffering profound mental illness whose claims about the incident that night should have been thrown out of court.
The man was suffering from both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, was having both audible and visual hallucinations on the night of Docoza’s death, and had described himself to police as both “the king of Adelaide” and also falsely claimed to be an A-grade state footballer.
Bromley’s case was heard by the Court of Criminal Appeal four years ago during which eight expert witnesses gave evidence.
Five of them were psychiatrists giving evidence in relation to the witness and all five agreed that the way in which this evidence was presented by Dr Manock at the trial was misleading.
“We had four experts for Mr Bromley and one expert appointed by the Crown, and even the Crown’s expert agreed with the defence experts,” Dr Moles said. “But at the appeal, the Crown refused to call their own expert.”
Dr Moles said he was heartened that the High Court had agreed to look at the case and believed the evidentiary flaws and the broader concerns around Dr Manock’s qualifications and the reliability of his evidence meant the guilty verdict should be overturned.
SA Best MP Frank Pangallo told The Australian that the case was an outrage and Bromley should not have been convicted.
Mr Pangallo has visited Bromley in prison and described him as “an intelligent, articulate and a genuinely compassionate person who steadfastly refuses to admit committing the murder for which he was convicted’’.
“He is a strong-willed man of principal who is quite prepared to die in jail rather than confess to something he says he didn’t do,” Mr Pangallo said.
“He didn’t strike me as being an unremorseful cold and callous killer. I actually found him to be quite pleasant company.
“The guards I spoke to like him and don’t consider him a threat to their safety or others at the facility. He is an active member of the Cadell CFS unit and has attended many call outs for fires and road accidents in the Riverland area.”
Mr Pangallo has claimed under parliamentary privilege that he suspected many in the South Australian legal system did not want the case reopened because of the ramifications it could have for other cases that involved the evidence of Dr Manock.
“I am not exaggerating when I say this, but everybody working in the criminal justice system in this state – from senior police and lawyers to judges and retired judges – knows about it,” he said.
“Yet they remain totally mute because they realise it would unearth a huge can of worms, damaging big reputations in legal and law enforcement circles in the process and subjecting SA taxpayers to massive compensation claims.
“I can guarantee you no other state in this country would ever tolerate it, like we saw with the swift action taken by the Queensland government after the appalling failures of its forensic science lab were exposed by The Australian.
“It demands a royal commission no less. But who has the guts to do it?”
Mr Pangallo and Dr Moles said they believed Bromley should receive significant compensation for his almost four decades in jail, with Dr Moles pointing to the $2.57m paid to Mr Keogh as “an obvious precedent and starting point”.
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. 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;
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
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