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Wrongly Convicted Database Record
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Charge: |
Indecent Assault of Minor |
Sentence: |
"5 months home detention, 200 hours of community work, and ordered to pay reparation." |
Years Imprisoned: |
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Year Crime: |
1991 |
Year Convicted: |
2012 |
Year Cleared: |
2015 |
U.S. State or Country of Crime: |
New Zealand |
County or Region of Crime: |
Manawatu-Wanganui |
City of Crime: |
Palmerston North |
Result: |
Judicially Exonerated |
Summary of Case: |
"Mr. R. J. L. was wrongly convicted in 2012 for allegedly indecently assaulting a teenage boy in the early 1990s in Palmerston North, New Zealand. The jury acquitted him of two counts, but convicted him of one count. Ater his conviction he was sentenced to five months' home detention, 200 hours of community work, and ordered to pay reparation. The man appealed, and after his conviction was affirmed by the Court of Appeal, he appealed to the Supreme Court. On April 21, 2015 New Zealand's Supreme Court vacated his conviction on the basis the trial judge prejudicially erred in denying the defendant's request for a jury instruction that the reliability of complainant's testimony had to be assessed in light of the fact that he waited almost two decades before making a complaint against his alleged assailant. The Supreme Court stated the key issue in the trial was the complainant's honesty, so the defendant was deprived of a fair trial by the judge's denial. The Court stated: "The jury's question showing they were having some difficulty with the concepts of reliability and credibility would have been a good opportunity to give the warning. This was a case where the complainant's own evidence was that his memory had been adversely affected by the passage of time. The issues of reliability were not merely related to peripheral matters, but went to the heart of the charges." The Court ordered that the defendant would not be retried because the State did not seek a retrial, he has completed his sentence, and the offence was "relatively minor." By order of the Court the defendant was only identified as Mr. L." |
Conviction Caused By: |
Unreliable testimony by the alleged victim. |
Innocence Proved By: |
"On April 21, 2015 New Zealand's Supreme Court vacated his conviction on the basis the trial judge prejudicially erred in denying the defendant's request for a jury instruction that the reliability of complainant's testimony had to be assessed in light of the fact that he waited almost two decades before making a complaint against his alleged assailant." |
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: |
Male |
Skin/Ethnicity: |
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Information Source 1: |
L v The Queen [2015] NZSC 42 (21 April 2015) (Convictions quashed and no retrial ordered.) |
Information Location 1: |
http://www.nzlii.org/nz/cases/NZSC/2015/42.html |
Information Source 2: |
"Man's conviction quashed due to judge's failure, By Jono Galuszka, Manawatu Standard (Manawatu, NZL), April 23 2015" |
Information Location 2: |
http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/news/67991615/Mans-conviction-quashed-due-to-judges-failure |
Information Source 3: |
L v The Queen [2015] NZSC 53 (7 May 2015) |
Information Location 3: |
http://www.nzlii.org/nz/cases/NZSC/2015/53.html |
Information Source 4: |
"Court quashes indecent assault conviction, Radio New Zealand, May 8, 2015" |
Information Location 4: |
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/273171/court-quashes-indecent-assault-conviction |
Information Source 5: |
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Information Location 5: |
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Comments About Case: |
Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org