" Nolite Timere" * Appeal judges are reluctant to overturn jury verdicts. So why did they do it for George Pell?

"no more than a plain vanilla sexual penetration case 

where the child is not volunteering or actively participating".

Pell's barrister Robert Richter QC 

8-4-2020 

The Guardian

• Rick Sarre 
• 
  
• is adjunct professor of law and criminal justice at the University of South Australia
• This piece was originally published on the Conversation

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But in cases such as Pell, the high court has reinforced the notion that, despite the jury having the primary responsibility of determining the guilt or innocence of a person on trial, its responsibility can be subject to a higher order.

This is because, ultimately, the appeal courts have been given an overriding responsibility of determining for themselves whether a jury decision is a safe decision that has not been infected with the hue and cry or matters outside the evidence that was put to them.

Whatever one may think , it is appropriate there be such a final arbiter in the justice process.

But one victim of this appeal result may be a loss of public confidence in the jury system. At the other end of the spectrum, others may lose confidence in the justice system itself.

I trust that neither is the outcome. But one could be excused for feeling a general uneasiness about the fact that, for all the store we place on juries in determining issues of guilt and innocence, their role can be dispensed with so easily."

* wapenspreuk George kardinaal Pell 


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