Alan Hall recently applied for compensation for his wrongful conviction, after the conviction for murder was quashed by the Supreme Court this year. Photo / Greg Bowker
Alan Hall recently applied for compensation for his wrongful conviction, after the conviction for murder was quashed by the Supreme Court this year. Photo / Greg Bowker
OPINION:
Can there be a greater injustice than being wrongfully accused and convicted of a crime?
This past week it was reported nearly 900 people have had convictions quashed or sent back to court in the past decade.
New Zealand’s justice system has got it wrong 893 times.
Afurther 340 people have also pleaded their cases with the Criminal Cases Review Commission to investigate whether they suffered a miscarriage of justice.
The Commission, Te Kāhui Tātari Ture, set up in 2020 and replacing the Royal Prerogative of Mercy, has been inundated with applications for help.
Late last year the first Te Kāhui Tātari Ture case was sent to the Court of Appeal in which a teenage boy was mistakenly imprisoned because the court at the time had an incorrect birth date that made him appear older.
It’s no surprise at least one defence lawyer is calling for a complete overhaul of the system.
Defence lawyer Elizabeth Hall says the justice system is a "wrecking ball in people's lives" and is in dire need of an overhaul. Photo / Supplied
The problem is that New Zealand justice has long been flawed, and repeatedly shown to be so. Despite this, and a criminal justice reform that ended in mid-2021, injustice still occurs. That’s because there are too few consequences for a case being mishandled. The matter is simply referred to another court; that’s if the accused has the resources to continue fighting. Many do not, and simply give in to a system stacked overwhelmingly against them.
At a time when we are, appropriately, addressing injustices heaped on those abused in state care and continuing to face up to obligations to Māori as New Zealand’s first people, it seems anathema to turn a blind eye to those continually chewed up and spat out by our courts.
Every prisoner will insist they are innocent, but how outrageous must it be for those that are speaking the truth?
In June last year, it was revealed more than $9 million has been paid out in New Zealand to those who were wrongly convicted and ordered to serve jail time.
But this is a drop in a very large bucket when you consider Teina Pora received $3.5m for the 21 years he spent in prison for twice being convicted of the rape and murder of Susan Burdett in 1992.
Arthur Allan Thomas received almost $1m in compensation after it was determined by a Royal Commission of Inquiry that evidence against him had been planted by detectives. He was twice convicted for the infamous 1970 murders of Harvey and Jeanette Crewe, once in 1971 and again in 1973, spending nine years in prison.
The damage caused by wrongful convictions is almost inestimable.
Alan Hall had his murder conviction quashed by the Supreme Court in Wellington last June; Justice Helen Winkelmann satisfied a substantial miscarriage of justice had occurred. Hall spent 19 years behind bars after being convicted of murdering Arthur Easton in his home in October 1985.
He and his family fought so long that his mother, Shirley, had to sell their family home to help pay the fees to overturn his conviction. She died in 2012 and never got to see justice served to her son.
Solicitor-General Una Jagose has opened an investigation into the Crown’s role in the case surrounding Alan Hall’s now-quashed murder conviction.
But, until real recompense is on the table for wrongful convictions and consequences are sheeted home to those responsible, there will be no compulsion to improve. Once the cost of faulty convictions becomes too high then pressure will, at last, be brought to prevent them.
Only this will bring some balance to the scales of justice.
