SUB-HEADING: High court appeal this week is Bromley’s last chance to walk free after being jailed for life."
GIST: "A man who has spent almost 40 years in prison for a murder he says he did not commit will have his final chance at having his conviction overturned by the high court this week.
Derek Bromley and his accomplice, John Karpany, were jailed for life for the murder of Stephen Docoza, whose body was found floating in Adelaide’s River Torrens in 1984.
Bromley and Karpany were accused of bludgeoning Docoza to death after he refused their sexual advances at what was then a gay beat on the banks of the river.
In 2004 Karpany was released on parole.
Bromley has been eligible for parole since 2006, but his applications have been denied as he will not accept he committed the crime.
The high court will hear Bromley’s appeal this week, giving him a chance to walk free after four decades.'
Bromley’s quest for freedom has been spurred on by legislation passed in 2013 that allows prisoners to appeal again if they have “fresh and compelling” evidence.
The case has been referred to the full court, which will hear the leave to appeal and the substantive appeal together over two days.
The Flinders University legal academic Bob Moles, who has extensively researched the case, said there had been no other case in Australia where a prisoner has had their conviction overturned after 40 years.
He said the appeal hung on two arguments – that the eyewitness was unreliable and the forensic pathologist did not have adequate training to determine the cause of death.
“The problem with the eyewitness was that he was suffering from what’s called a schizoaffective disorder,” Moles said.
“He was suffering from visual and audible hallucinations on the evening that the incident occurred. He thought he was the king of Adelaide and a top league footballer.”
In his 2018 application to the court of criminal appeal, Bromley’s lawyers argued that on the same day the witness said he saw Bromley murder Docoza, he was also hospitalised for several months because of his severe mental health illness.
Bromley’s lawyers also questioned the evidence of the forensic pathologist Colin Manock, whose work in some cases had since been challenged.
The journalist Drew Rooke wrote a book on Manock and had extensively researched his life.
Manock only had a medical degree, but was given the job out of desperation to fill the position, he said.
“[Manock] had the qualifications on paper but they had been more or less been gifted to him … he didn’t have to undergo the five years of training that his peers had to undergo, nor did he have to sit a very extensive and detailed, written exam,” Rooke said.
Docoza’s body had been submerged in the water for several days after he died and had undergone serious decomposition – yet Manock found he had been grabbed by the neck and drowned.
“After that amount of time and that amount of decomposition, particularly in water, it’s widely recognised in the field of forensic science that it becomes very difficult to provide conclusive findings about the cause of death,” Rooke said.
Manock could not be reached for comment."
The entire story can be reached 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;
—————————————————————————————————
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;
------------------------------------------------------------------
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.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------
