Did George Pell’s jury fail the courts?

A law professor has questioned whether the jury in George Pell’s trial failed to find that there was evidence that established reasonable doubt.

Naomi Neilson • 19 March 2020 • Big Law

A jury trial is considered a “gold standard” for determining justice in criminal cases but at the base of it, jurors are human and are bound to make mistakes. This is the concern of Jill Hunter, a law professor with the UNSW.

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Professor Hunter argued that there is a mountain of highly contested factual and legal details involved in responding to the question of whether the jury failed. At the centre, however, is uncertainty of whether the prosecution will benefit from the uncertainty.

“Clearly, establishing an informed and considered view of the evidence is not achieved by singular acceptance of one or two witnesses’ accounts,” Professor Hunter said.

“Nor is it relevant whether a high-ranking cleric would or would not behave in the way alleged. George Pell is not being tried for the crimes of others. The Victorian Court of Appeal divided 2:1 to uphold the jury verdicts. It is reasonably likely there will be some differences of opinions within the High Court, though nothing can be predicted.”

Professor Hunter said many of the “pressure points” in the High Court’s decision reliy on the jury’s important role in the trial and how they approached the evidence.

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There will be an examination of the jury’s ability to decide, based on group deliberation, community-informed and everyday life experiences and jurors’ common sense, which “makes it a highly valued common law institution” within criminal law.

This leaves the question open. Now that it is before the High Court, did the majority of the jury fail to recognise there is evidence that established a reasonable doubt?

“If the jury did fail to recognise evidence, it could not find the former cardinal guilty of the five offences,” Professor Hunter said.

naomi.neilson@momentummedia.com.au

Naomi Neilson

Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.

You can email Naomi at: naomi.neilson@momentummedia.com.au

Anonymous Tuesday, 07 April 2020

There was apparently 6 minutes when this may have happened. But, in a sacristy, which has constant footfall, one wold not know one had 6 minutes in a current timeline.

0
Anon Tuesday, 07 April 2020

I have been an altar boy. People come in and out sacristies all the time, bringing cash collections, flowers, wine, Eucharist etc. It is almost a public place. Would / Could a Bishop use this area immediately after Mass for abuse? Personally, I think highly improbable, bordering on impossible, in the sense that anyone could walk in at any moment.

1
Anonymous Tuesday, 24 March 2020

A key failing in George Pell's case is that no one seems to have taken into account the effect on the jury of decades of adverse comment on the Cardinal by the Australian media. Was it possible to find 12 men and women in Victoria who did not already hold a negative opinion of the Cardinal as a consequence of that media comment? Probably not. This is why most Australian States provide for judge only criminal trials in special circumstances. The Cardinal was denied this protection because Victorian law does not permit judge only trials. Accordingly, the Cardinal was always at a disadvantage in this litigation. The media seems not to have given up on their pursuit of the Cardinal. Is it a mere co-incidence that SBS has begun screening its highly controversial documentary "Revelation" about sex abuse in the Catholic Church during the very week that the Cardinal's application for leave to appeal was being heard by the full High Court? The obvious delight which so many journalists have taken in the Cardinal's downfall and in being able to describe him as the "disgraced Cardinal", the "convicted pedophile" etc leaves little doubt that this is no coincidence but rather part of an on-going campaign to "get" the Cardinal. The Cardinal's conservatism upset many people in the media and they seem determined to have their revenge.

10
- D Wednesday, 25 March 2020
  
  Google "Carl Beech". The UK believed him. "Sincere," they all thought. We wait in hope, but really I think the Leftists have no shame and will persecute Pell in the HC
  
  2
Anonymous Monday, 23 March 2020

Neither juries which convict nor courts which uphold convictions are necessarily correct.
Some better known wrongful convictions in Australian and the UK are: Annie Maguire (UK - manufacturing bombs); the Birmingham 6 (UK - mass murder); the Guildford 4 (UK - mass murder); Lindy Chamberlain (NT - murder); Ziggy Pohl (NSW - murder); David Bryant (UK - historical rape against a child); Josephine Greensill (Vic - historical sexual assault against two children), Andrew Mallard (WA - murder), John Button (WA - murder), Darryl Beamish (WA - murder), Tim Evans (UK - murder).
Most of these convictions were confirmed on appeal. Josephine Greensill's is a happy exception where the conviction was so ridiculous that the Crown more or less gave up on appeal.
The lives of all of these people, except Tim Evans, were ruined by conviction and imprisonment. Tim Evans' life was ruined by hanging.
David Bryant's case will sound familiar - allegations of rape from 20 years earlier, believable complainant, no corroboration, the one other person who could have contradicted the complainant was dead, appeal dismissed. Mr Bryant served 3 years imprisonment before being exculpated. And this all occurred in circumstances where there was no public campaign against him before trial as happened in Cardinal Pell's case.
I do not know whether Cardinal Pell is guilty or not, I wasn't there. But I would not want to face trial knowing that the bar to conviction is as low as it seems to have been in his case.
If all of the exculpatory evidence called in Cardinal Pell's trial is not enough to secure an acquittal, what chance would any of us have of showing a reasonable doubt from events said to have occurred decades ago?

3
Anonymous Saturday, 21 March 2020

We do not allow direct research into how jurors reach their decisions. We leave that to the Americans. I don’t see a need to change that situation because the American experience of jurors seeking celebrity is not something we should seek to replicate. That said, after 40+ years in the law, I still wonder at the speculation that issues from the mouths of lawyers and police alike about what jurors think and how they reached particular decisions. Perhaps we should be more reticent in that regard, as we are really no better placed than anyone else to read the minds of ordinary men and women.

If the Pell case teaches us anything, it is that defendants should have the option of judge-only trials in every jurisdiction. I suspect the latest pandemic and the indefinite postponement in Victoria of all jury trials where a jury has nor already been empaneled will increase pressure on that State to move with the times. There will be resistance from those at the Bar who see themselves as being effective advocates before juries, but giving the client more options can only be a good thing in the long term.

As for whether Pell is guilty, the verdict stands until the HCA sees fit to change things. If they were as one and strongly minded as to Pell’s innocence, would they have left an elderly man to languish in prison while they reserved their decision?

-2
Michael de Klerk Thursday, 19 March 2020

The conviction rests solely upon the evidence of one witness, who stands to make considerable monetary gain from the conviction. He has been contradicted by several other witnesses who stand to gain nothing at all. This isn't "reasonable doubt"?

3
WJ Thursday, 19 March 2020

I don't think it is appropriate or ethical to make public comment on a decision that is still pending.

-3
- Anonymous Saturday, 04 April 2020
  
  Would it make a difference if the accused was a darling of the Left?
  
  0
Pete Thursday, 19 March 2020

This is the wrong question. If the jury understood the judge's directions, and those directions were given according to law, then the jury must have been satisfied there was no evidence which established reasonable doubt.
Therefore, the professor should first be asking the question "did the jury understand the judge's directions?"
If the professor is so lacking in trust of the public's ability to understand a judge's directions, then she should be arguing to scrap the jury system.

Just to be clear, I do not hold such an opinion. I have been involved in many jury trials and am certain they got every decision correct (even when they found my client guilty). I presume they got it correct in the Cardinal's case too.

-1
- Tom Hodgson Thursday, 19 March 2020
  
  What a load of bullshit. Juries are fallible just like any human orgisation is fallible
  
  3
  - David Friday, 20 March 2020
    
    You are correct. Juries are made up of human beings. But studies have shown that juries get it right more often than wrong.
    
    0
- Leigh Saturday, 21 March 2020
  
  Sure, so did they get it correct in the first or the second trial?
  
  1
truth Thursday, 19 March 2020

jury got influenced from a biased media at the time....any lay person can see reasonable doubt here

0
- Anonymous Friday, 20 March 2020
  
  So how do you explain the Court of Appeal? No jury?
  
  -2
Anonymous Thursday, 19 March 2020

Lindy Chamberlain again

6
- Anonymous Thursday, 19 March 2020
  
  agree, our legal system has failed
  
  5
- Anonymous Thursday, 19 March 2020
  
  what an injustice
  
  4
- Anonymous Thursday, 19 March 2020
  
  shame on our courts that 2 justices are incompetent, they dont know the meaning of reasonable doubt
  
  1
  - Anonymous Friday, 20 March 2020
    
    I wish people posting here understood the role of the Court of Appeal.
    
    -6
    - Adrian Saturday, 21 March 2020
      
      I don’t think even the Court of Appeal understood their role, which is not to seek to replicate a jury. Why on Earth the majority deferred to the “demeanor” of an undoubtedly compelling Complainant (by accepting and viewing his video testimony) is beyond me - that can only be the consequence of a jury’s function.
      
      4

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