Criminal practice – Appeal – Unreasonable verdict – Circumstantial case – Where victim dislodged from outside of moving vehicle – Where Court of Appeal set aside verdict of guilty of murder and substituted verdict of guilty of manslaughter – Whether determination of unreasonable verdict on hypothesis raised by Court of Appeal inconsistent with adversarial process – Whether reckless indifference was an issue at trial – Whether failure to make full allowance for advantages enjoyed by jury – Whether failure to consider combined effect of all circumstances and evidence in respect of circumstantial case – Whether Court of Appeal may substitute a verdict of an alternative offence under s 37O(1)(d) of Supreme Court Act 1933 (ACT) – Whether proceedings should be remitted to Court of Appeal.
Words and phrases – "advantages enjoyed by the jury", "adversarial process", "all the circumstances", "alternative offence", "alternative verdict", "circumstantial case", "combined effect", "full allowance", "jury advantage", "M v The Queen", "manslaughter", "murder", "piecemeal approach", "probability of causing death", "R v Baden-Clay", "real and substantial chance", "reckless indifference", "remittal", "unreasonable or cannot be supported", "whole of the evidence".
Crimes Act 1900 (ACT), ss 12(1)(b), 15, 49, 297.
Supreme Court Act 1933 (ACT), ss 37E, 37O.