Public confidence in NZ Courts on the verge of collapse: rogue juror’s out of control

“The Jury is at the heart of our justice system; its sacred. Twelve men and women we rely on to represent us when it comes to judging someone charged with a crime; its a serious business”

Miriama Kamo, Sunday, TVNZ

 

Update: Looks like we here at Lauda Finem may have hit the nail on the head. The TVNZ’s “the third juror” program was the warm up act for a National Party Government attempt to again shaft David Bain:

Collins ‘concerned’ about Bain report (TV3)

 

We here at Lauda Finem are concerned with how New Zealand’s jurors have been conducting themselves, including a mysterious individual TVNZ has referred to call as“the third juror” who featured in the broadcasters ‘Sunday’ program spin piece that went to air on the 18/11/2012 (view below).

There are a number of questions that need to be asked of this particular juror turned rogue,  journo, Janet McIntyre,  and the TVNZ producers who slapped this piece of shit together. The first and most obvious question would be, why did it take so long for this so-called juror to come forward with her strange tales?

Why is it only now that she’s become concerned with how the verdict is being perceived by the New Zealand public; is public perception really any of her bloody business?

Why, if her allegations are true, did she not raise these concerns in the appropriate forum; in court during the trial.

When asked why she hadn’t by TVNZ’s Janet McIntyre during the interview the excuses she offered reeked of insincerity, the utterances of a complete fucktard :

“He said we could come to him if we had any questions of legal terminology or legal definitions, but I didn’t, I never took that to mean we could go to him with anything other than that. As far as I was concerned the judge was a figure-head who we were not to disturb with anything else and we were to work everything out on our own”

Her stranger than fiction statement  that “As far as (she) was concerned the judge was a figure-head who we were not to disturb” is obviously a complete and utter nonsense. A complete idiot would have been aware that the Judge was not just a “ figure-head”. The fact that he controlled the court and was responsible for the courts conduct would have been more than obvious throughout the trial, it certainly was in the daily television news aired at the time.

This woman’s excuse’s are quite obviously contrived. Juries once they retire to consider their verdict are fully supported by court staff such as registrars. If, as she purports,  her concerns were held during the period of deliberation why then is it that she did not approach one of the court staff or a registrar for advice; there would have been ample opportunity.

Her claim that a fellow juror had arrived with printed copies of material that his wife had found online also seems strange. She claims that this particular gentleman had drawn her attention to the papers, but that she did not know whether he had shown other jurors. This account frankly, just as with her excuse for not having brought her concerns to the attention of the judge, is not at all credible.

If at the time she saw it as a concern she would have undoubtedly been vigilant and aware of who else had been offered the documents

This whistle-blowing  juror, during the interview, presents as very intelligent, confident articulate and obviously not shy when it comes to sharing her views. After all she has absolutely no problem eloquently recounting her reaction to seeing her fellow juror on television hugging David Bain outside the court following the trial; “It turned my stomach”. Then of course there was her reaction to finding out that two jurors had spent a brief period at the Bain camps post trial celebration; “it was just a kick in the guts”. Although for some reason she failed to convince, us at least, that her emotionally tumultuous response was appropriate given that she too had been responsible for acquitting Bain and would have been aware that it had been an emotional occasion for everyone involved, the jurors included.

Interestingly “the third juror” appears to infer that fellow jurors, those that she is only now accusing,  left by the courts public entrance. Of course this is not unusual behaviour, jurors often leave via the courts main entrance. What then occurred is that one or two jurors saw Bain and the media frenzy out on the street. But its interesting how TVNZ constructed it so as to have it seem that the accused jurors had disregarded the judges direction by leaving with the Bain Camp.

With the above in mind it is simply beyond belief that had “the third juror” genuinely held these concerns during the trial that she would not have raised and discussed them with the jury and or the foreman. That’s right the foreman, after all, once elected, that’s what the foreman is there for. It would then have been for the foreman to have raised the problems with the supporting court staff.

TVNZ’s McIntyre then states “the third juror then says that during the trial she found out about another transgression by three jurors”:

“I know of three people who just of their own volition went to Dunedin, for various reasons, not specifically to go and scout out the Every Street, but um, all three came back after they’d visited there, visited Dunedin, and said they’d gone by where the house used to be and one person had even taken pictures, now I knew this to be wrong“

It is of no particular concern to us that the three jurors had driven past Every Street and taken a look at where David Bain’s house once stood, after all its unlikely that a few photographs of a vacant lot would have resulted in any prejudice; after all the police had ensured that the house was burnt to the ground soon after Bain’s first trial; one amongst many highly suspicious events involving the Dunedin police and the destruction/disappearance of evidence.

What is of interest to us, however, is the fact that despite “knowing it to be wrong”, the juror concerned does not give the time frame in which these alleged trips, and the reasons for them, occurred and just how it came to be that she was made aware of her fellow jurors activities.

Reading between the lines we suspect a less sinister explanation than that being inferred by TVNZ;  that the juror become aware of her colleagues visits to Every Street during the deliberations when her fellow jurors, those that she is now accusing of wrong doing, volunteered the information to be discussed by the entire jury. If this is the case then she may well have broken the law, as that information formed part of the deliberation process

Again, if as purported, she held serious concerns about the three jurors behaviour why then didn’t she immediately raise it with the jury as a whole, and if dissatisfied with the response report her concerns to the court staff?

The holes in her story become even more evident when nearing the end of the interview when she is answering some quite extraordinarily loaded questions, posed by the journo, on the jurors interpretation of the “meaning of the verdict”.

Remember earlier in the interview “the third juror” had clearly structured her responses with the intention of having viewers believe she had been naive or perhaps a little ignorant when it came to her failure to raise the juries purportedly inappropriate behavior with the judge during the trial.

Given that “the third juror” makes it clear that she is not challenging the verdict, that she too had found Bain not guilty and by her own admission she had failed to report the alleged inappropriate behaviour during the trial what then is all the fuss about?

Nearing the end of the interview the real agenda arguably becomes a little clearer. In fact we would suggest that it becomes as obvious as “balls on a short haired dog”.

Remember, the thrust of the story had been the juries alleged bad behaviour.  Had “the third juror” presented some real evidence of wrong doing in the deliberations that likely resulted in a miscarriage of justice, it may have been a very real concern but she didn’t.

As an aside we’ll be addressing the issue of rogue jurors and their bad behaviour later in the year but unlike “the third juror” and TVNZ we’ll be providing very real evidence of serious wrong doing by two  juries that did influence the outcome of two trials; one in Auckland and the other in Christchurch.

It seems to us that one thing that stands out in the interview. Whilst “the third juror” is sitting there pointing the finger at her fellow jurors it’s obvious that she has been the only juror who deliberately sought media attention, with an agenda that had nothing whatsoever to do with jury misconduct.

We would argue that the purported jury misconduct was a furphy, a ruse employed by both the “the third juror”and TVNZ to disguise the real agenda; a perverse and cynical attempt to turn public opinion against David Bain’s bid for compensation.

For someone who had wanted viewers believe that she was naive as to her obligations to report wrong doing to the judge later in the interview she begins to display a remarkable knowledge when the journalist suddenly departs the issue of jury misconduct to discuss the unrelated issue of the meaning of the juries “NOT GUILTY” verdict.

For someone that has just finished slagging off her fellow jurors behaviour “the third juror” appears to have behaved in a way that would have most people seeing her as complete and utter hypocrite. In fact the other jurors alleged bad behavior pales into insignificance when seen in the light of what “the third juror” had been up to.

Clearly “the third juror”, following the trial, had sought to interfere with due process. It also appears that she would like to have all n’ sundry believe that a fundamental tenet of our legal system “innocent until proven guilty” has somehow vanished:

“I think that there’s been a lot of confusion about what David Bain’s not guilty verdict in the second trial means. There’s been a lot of speculation that it means that he was found innocent and I was a juror and I never found David Bain innocent, that was never what I was asked to find. We were asked whether or not the prosecution proved the case beyond reasonable doubt that David Bain was guilty and that they did not do”

We suspect that the only one suffering confusion is “the third juror”. There is no place for  juror’s to be seen on national television offering a reinterpretation of  fundamental legal principles, however her failure to grasp the priciple that anyone charged with a crime is “innocent until proven guilty” is astounding and TVNZ’s promotion of this utter nonsense is very disturbing and at the same time telling.

When Bain’s original conviction was quashed by the privy council his innocent status again applied, at least until such time as the prosecution might yet again manage to prove his guilt at retrial, which of course they didn’t.

This woman, unlike her fellow jurors, has evidently now become a crusading activist, an anti Bain activist who is obviously seeking the approval of the anti Bain camp; a position that could lead a reasonable person to believe that she may have been one of those jurors who discretely sought to have Bain re-convicted, but was unable to hold out against the other jurors who sought a not guilty verdict.

For this reason we wouldn’t want to run the risk of having her sit in judgement of anyone else. With that in mind we here at Lauda Finem are working on creating a digitally enhanced composite image of “juror three” using stills of the various parts of her face shown in the TVNZ interview so that any New Zealander who is unfortunate enough to be going to trial will be able to recognise this nasty piece of work and challenge.

Whats also astounding about this woman’s behaviour is the fact that she managed to contact Judge Binnie. Why did she feel compelled to do that? Her role in the case had finished, it ended with the verdict. Was she seeking to influence Justice Binnie’s report findings. Of real concern, how did she get hold of Justice Binnie’s personal email address?

As stated by McIntyre this vigilante juror was also able to obtain confidential information on the nature and content of the evidence before the judge, again just how was this possible;  how did this woman find out that Binnie had asked for and been given a copy of Karam’s book?

What’s more, what degree of insanity had led her to believe that a her opinion had anything to do with the evidence Binnie had been asked to review?

Why had the juror contacted Auckland Universities associate professor Bill Hodge for legal advice? Why not someone from her local Canterbury University? Why did she even need legal advice?

There are so many questions surrounding this jurors outrageous behaviour and they need to be answered:

Is she a National party stooge?

Was she attempting to subvert David Bain’s bid for compensation?

Why didn’t Crown law immediately investigate her behaviour, in contacting Justice Binnie, when Binnie had reported it to Crown Law? After all Binnie clearly considered her behaviour out of order.

What did the juror’s unsolicited affidavit state and what had she said in the email she sent Justice Binnie?

What advice did associate Professor Bill Hodge give her?

Is she suffering from mental illness or is she just a complete fuckwit?

Is there anything in the fact that Binnie, Hodge and “the third juror” all appear to be Canadians?

New Zealander’s should be very concerned with the fact that the judicial system has been tainted by the behaviour of this and other corrupt jurors that Lauda Finem will be naming in the near future.

The other jurors we’ll be exposing have committed far more serious breaches. One in fact failing to disclose his close relationship to a leading prosecution witness. In another case the foreman of the jury was seen  talking to police officers/prosecution witnesses in the back of a police car during the trial. These two breaches are serious because in both cases the jurors have been responsible for perverting the course of justice.

Its not just New Zealander’s that have lost confidence in the courts and juries, having seen serious and systemic problems with the judicial system, leading jurists in other countries have started to raise eyebrows at the behaviour and the fact that the problems are not being taken seriously and or being addressed.

Jurors who become aware of wrong-doing by juries should come forward and report the offending immediately, not weeks, months or years later; by then its often to late; an innocent person may have been sent to prison and the process of reversing the travesty is onerous.

We understand that Crown law have now decided to investigate the TVNZ program and the juror to see whether they have violated any laws:

The Crown Law Office is to review a television programme in which a juror from David Bain’s second trial was interviewed to see if it breached court rules.

The woman, whose name could not be published, appeared on Television New Zealand’s current affairs programme Sunday.

In the programme screened on 18 November, the woman said the jury had not found Mr Bain innocent, they had simply decided that the prosecution had not proved beyond reasonable doubt that he killed his family in Dunedin in 1994.

She said some jurors broke the rules by making private visits to the crime scene and bringing outside material about the case into the jury room.

The juror said she didn’t believe that David Bain should receive compensation.

Court rules forbid the photographing of jurors during or after a trial and while the woman’s whole face was not shown in the programme, there was no pixillation of her image.

A Crown Law office spokesperson says they will review the programme to see if any contempt of court occurred.

David Bain spent 13 years in jail for the murder of his parents and three siblings and was acquitted at a retrial in 2009.

Source: http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/121327/crown-law-to-review-bain-juror-documentary

That aside, if any of our readers recognise the juror featured in the TVNZ program below why not email us with her details; laudafinem@bigpond.com

Update: TVNZ, Rogue Jurors Campaign Exposed

Related articles

• Juror: ‘I never found David Bain innocent’ (nzherald.co.nz)
• Crown Law to review Bain juror documentary (radionz.co.nz)