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Wrongly Convicted Database Record
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Charge: |
Driving Related Causing Death |
Sentence: |
"Fined AUS$10,000 and disqualified from driving for 2 years" |
Years Imprisoned: |
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Year Crime: |
2002 |
Year Convicted: |
2005 |
Year Cleared: |
2009 |
U.S. State or Country of Crime: |
Australia |
County or Region of Crime: |
Western Australia |
City of Crime: |
Roebourne |
Result: |
Judicially Exonerated |
Summary of Case: |
"Dr Leila Dekker was wrongly convicted on December 7, 2005 of dangerous driving that caused the death on April 27, 2002 of a vehicle's passenger near Roebourne, Western Australia. After Dekker's vehicle pulled out onto the North West Coastal Highway from a secondary road the driver of a vehicle passing her ran off the road and rolled several times. A female passenger thrown from the vehicle died at the scene. It was night and Dr. Dekker did not see the vehicle roll over and she didn't stop, but she did hear sounds that could have been the vehicle crashing. Dr. Dekker went to the nearby police station and reported what happened. She was charged with dangerous driving causing death. The prosecution's case was based on the wrecked vehicle's driver testimony that Dr. Dekker pulled in front of his vehicle causing him to swerve and lose control and run off the road. Dekker and her male passenger both testifed that the oncoming vehicle was on a collision course with her stopped vehicle and she drove onto the highway to avoid a crash. After her conviction by a jury in the Karratha District Court, she was sentenced to pay a fine of AUS$10,000 and her driver's licence was suspended for two years. Although she immediately instructed her lawyer to file an appeal, it wasn't done. She changed lawyers several times, and in February 2008 she was tried in the Magistrates Court in Roebourne on a motor vehicle charge of dangerous driving causing bodily harm arising from the incident in April 2002. Dekker was acquitted after she presented expert testimony by forensic crash consultant Robert John Lyne Davey that the vehicle that crashed was out of control at the time Dekker entered the T intersection, and the prosecution's witness, Senior Constable Troy Pillage, agreed with Davey's conclusion. Dekker's notice of appeal for her 2005 felony conviction was filed on June 18, 2008 -- 2 years and 5 months after time expired for her to file an appeal. Because her her notice of appeal was filed late, it was accompanied by an application for extension of time within which she could appeal. Dekker's appeal was based on two grounds: First, her conviction was a miscarriage of justice based on new evidence discovered after her trial. Namely, the new evidence consisted of affidavits of expert Robert Davey (dated Feb. 1, 2008), her trial counsel, and the prosecutor. Dekker's new expert evidence was photos of the tire marks on the road established the wrecked vehicle was out of control at the time she pulled onto the highway, and therefore she didn't cause the crash and death of the passenger. Second, that the prosecution introduced insufficient evidence at trial to support her conviction. The Western Australia Court of Appeals granted her leave to file her appeal late, and on April 3, 2009 quashed her conviction on the basis the prosecution introduced insufficient evidence at trial to support that the crashed vehicle swerved as a result of Dr. Dekker pulling onto the highway. The appeals court rejected the expert evidence by Davey was "fresh" evidence, because it "could, with reasonable diligence, have been discovered" at the time of trial by her counsel. [See, Dekker v The State of Western Australia [2009] WASCA 72] On November 14, 2013, more than eleven years after the accident, the State Administrative Tribunal of Western Australia acted on a complaint by the Medical Board of Australia, by finding that Dr. Dekker was guilty of "improper conduct" when she did not stop and try to render assistance following the accident. Because Dr. Dekker reported the incident to the police, the SAT rejected her conduct was "infamous." [See, Medical Board of Australia and Dekker [2013] WASAT182] A hearing to determine Dr. Dekker's penalty and costs was set for February 2014." |
Conviction Caused By: |
False testimony of the wrecked vehicle's driver about what caused him to lose control of his vehicle. |
Innocence Proved By: |
"The Western Australia Court of Appeals granted her leave to file her appeal late, and on April 3, 2009 quashed her conviction on the basis the prosecution introduced insufficient evidence at trial to support that the crashed vehicle swerved as a result of Dr. Dekker pulling onto the highway." |
Defendant Aided By: |
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Compensation Awarded: |
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Was Perpetrator Identified? |
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Age When Imprisoned: |
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Age When Released: |
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Sex: |
Female |
Skin/Ethnicity: |
White |
Information Source 1: |
Dekker v The State of Western Australia [2009] WASCA 72 |
Information Location 1: |
http://decisions.justice.wa.gov.au/supreme/supdcsn.nsf/PDFJudgments-WebVw/2009WASCA0072/%24FILE/2009WASCA0072.pdf |
Information Source 2: |
Medical Board of Australia and Dekker [2013] WASAT 182 (11-14-2013] |
Information Location 2: |
http://decisions.justice.wa.gov.au/SAT/SATdcsn.nsf/%24%24OpenDominoDocument.xsp?documentId=4217A5178C9EF08948257C380029CFDB&action=openDocument |
Information Source 3: |
"Doctor fined for dangerous driving causing death, ABC News, December 14, 2005" |
Information Location 3: |
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2005-12-14/doctor-fined-for-dangerous-driving-causing-death/761554 |
Information Source 4: |
"WA Tribunal finds doctor’s failure to check and render assistance at car accident improper conduct, By Holman Webb and Tim Smyth (Holman Web lawyers, Australia), lexology.com, December 13 2013" |
Information Location 4: |
http://www.holmanwebb.com.au/publications/wa-tribunal-finds-doctor-s-failure-to-check-and-render-assistance-at-car-accident-improper-conduct |
Information Source 5: |
"Freaked out’ doctor guilty after leaving accident, By Byron Kaye, Medical Observer (St Leonards, NSW, Australia), November 26, 2013" |
Information Location 5: |
http://www.medicalobserver.com.au/news/freaked-out-doctor-guilty-after-leaving-accident |
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Comments About Case: |
"Medical Board of Western Australia, 2010 Annual Report, 30 June 2010, http://www.parliament.wa.gov.au/publications/tabledpapers.nsf/displaypaper/3812608afcf7785637f2d55e482577a700063477/$file/tp2608.pdf" |
Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org