Lloyd Rayney Case study

In a functioning modern democracy, the principles of justice are the principles that a fair justice system is based on. Australia, as a functioning democracy follows these principles which include but are not limited to: the right to a fair hearing, the right to a reasonable appeal, the fact that all individuals are equal before the law, and the independence of the judiciary. To help with analyzing a case we can look at each principle of justice and decide whether or not they were upheld before and during the span case.

Lloyd Rayney was a senior barrister involved with some of Western Australia’s most high-profile cases. Corryn Rayney, his wife was employed as a supreme court registrar. On the night of August the 7th 2007, she disappeared after taking part in her regular boot-scooting class. Her body was located a week later, laid in a bush grave in the king’s park bushland area. discovered close by the body was a dinner party name tag with her husband Lloyd Rayney’s name on it. Seeds pods from the liquid amber tree outside the family home led the police detectives to believe that Corryn was attacked by Lloyd outside the house. During the night after the older daughter came home from a concert that she had attended with a family friend Lloyd was accused of moving corrin’s body to the Kings Park bushland area and returning home. After these allegations were made, Lloyd was subsequently taken to court in 2012 by western Australian police and found to be not guilty.

During the Lloyd Rayney case, many of the principles of justice were upheld but there were still a few that were not. I will discuss which principles were not upheld and how this affected the case giving contrast to why these principles must be followed.

The Lloyd Rayney case involved the processing of many different items of evidence. The principle of High-Quality Evidence was violated in the Lloyd rayney case as it is highly likely that evidence was planted by police during the autopsy of corn rayney’s body. High-quality evidence is the foundation that a strong case is built on if a case does not have high-quality explainable evidence then it is more difficult to prove a person guilty. The reason that the police may plant evidence is if they feel pressure from their superiors to prove a person guilty, this is highly likely to have occurred in the rayney case. An example of the way that high-quality evidence was not upheld during the rayney case was during the examination of corryn rayney’s body. After her body was removed from King’s park there was an initial examination conducted on her body during this her hair was thoroughly combed and nothing was found. The next morning her hair was again combed and three golfball-sized liquid amber seedpods from the tree growing outside the family home were found. An additional seed pod was discovered in the body bag which had already been analyzed. Afterward many honorable people have speculated that the police planted the seed pods in an attempt to make it seem that corryn was killed at the family home. This would have violated the principle of high-quality evidence because if evidence was planted it would make the trial unfair as the evidence presented to be judged would be corrupt. This example demonstrates that if evidence was fabricated by the investigating offices in the rayney case it would have influenced the judge to come to a different verdict.

Another principle of justice that is relevant in the context of the rayney case is the right to a fair hearing. The right to a fair hearing is relevant in the context of the rayney case as the principle was upheld during the case as rayney was given an unbiased judge. On September 20th, 2007 Lloyd rayney was declared the prime and only suspect in the case by a high-level police detective during a public press conference. After this statement was released it was quickly spread around Western Australia to the point where the vast majority of people believed that Lloyd was guilty. This would mean that if a jury was chosen from the citizens of Western Australia it would be extremely biased and would likely find Lloyd unfairly guilty. This is why Lloyd was assigned a judge sourced from new south wales. The remotely sourced judgment that the trial was fair as he had not been exposed to the extreme amount of biased media as he would have if he has lived in Western Australia. This supported the principle of a fair trial as the court recognized that Lloyd would not be given a fair trial if a western Australian jury was used so instead sourced an unbiased single judge from new south wales.

Overall while there were still principles of justice followed in the Rayney case there were several let down. However, It seems that despite some unfair practice on the part of the Western Australian police the case ultimately had a fair outcome.