Since public comments on active trials run the risk of biasing juries, reporting on cases is restricted. Although this Blog was written whilst the Polkingham murder trial was in its first weeks, I was not able to release it back then. Now restrictions no longer apply & the jury has given its verdict, here goes - in the first days of this mega-buck trial, the Crown Prosecutor's own experts testified it was equally probable death could've occurred by suicide, or murder.
Extraordinarily, the Herald's court reporters wrote, "two NZ pathologists who estimate they've done 14,000 post-mortem examinations between them .. spent the majority of yesterday in the witness box at eye surgeon Philip Polkingham's ongoing murder trial. But by the end of the day, jurors were left with few definitive answers other than an admittedly vague agreed-upon cause of Pauline Hanna's death: neck compression. The mechanism of the 63-year-old’s fatal neck compression might've been suicide by hanging, or she might have been strangled with hands or a ligature, Doctors Kilek Kesha & Martin Sage reckoned".
Have you ever heard of a murder trial in which the Crown Prosecutor presents evidence from its own witnesses who declare one cannot say with any certainty at all, let alone "beyond reasonable doubt", a murder has even occurred? From that moment, the trial was doomed.
Have you ever heard of a murder trial in which the Crown Prosecutor presents evidence from its own witnesses who declare one cannot say with any certainty at all, let alone "beyond reasonable doubt", a murder has even occurred? From that moment, the trial was doomed.
The Prosecution proved the case for The Defense in its first days. Having established a 50-50 chance of murder or suicide, the case then descended into character assassination. The Crown launched attack after attack, describing in excruciating detail both the victim's and defendants' personal lives. They bordered on defamatory critiques. The media gulped it up - we'd thought Remuera in Auckland was home to conservative National types who only started voting ACT because way back that party needed to win a seat to get into Parliament to support National. Maybe folks in Ponsonby carry on in ways reported in this trial - but not Remuera.
Why was the trial ever brought when you don't need to have studied a shred of law (like me) to know "equally probable" is not the same as "beyond reasonable doubt"? My statistics knowledge is enough for that distinction. Why were millions of $ worth of court time wasted in a cost-of-living crisis? Why was the Prosecution paid for months in Court when its attack descended into a prudish view on the defendant's personal life?
What are Auckland's Big Law Firms up to? They've come close to collapsing NZ over the Treaty, sucking money out of those disputes at every opportunity. Its writing letters threatening defamation on those of us writing about monopolies. Now it has found a new activity: squandering tax-payer cash on prosecutions that never should've been brought. The only winners in this case are lawyers. Another reason why productivity growth is zero.
Professor Robert MacCulloch holds the Matthew S. Abel Chair of Macroeconomics at Auckland University. He has previously worked at the Reserve Bank, Oxford University, and the London School of Economics. He runs the blog Down to Earth Kiwi from where this article was sourced.
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