Lloyd Rayney Case ESSAY
Our legal system has multiple principles of justice that are in place to be followed by courts, tribunals, and society. There are 7 main principles of justice which consist of everyone being equal before the law, everyone has the right to a fair hearing, the judiciary being independent and impartial, the right to an appeal, the right to silence, and the presumption of innocence, and high-quality evidence. These principles are in place to uphold justice to the people within ours. In some cases, these principles have not been properly followed such as in the Lloyd Rayney case which we can see injustice towards the accused. All of these principles are required to be followed in court and if not, it can lead to a wrongful charge which could have a severe effect on the accused. The case of Lloyd Rayney was a homicide case that included the murder of his own wife. The Lloyd Rayney case was a case that featured a lack of presumption of innocence and high-quality evidence. There were two other prime suspects in this case, but Lloyd had been named the prime and only suspect by the main investigator of the homicide case. This shows a lack of concern for the other two suspects. Lloyd had not faced any charges as he was not found guilty, but he then filed a defamation suit against the Western Australian Government which he then proceeded to fight in court for the next 13 years. We can see that injustice in court can lead to unlawful action which leads to millions wasted throughout the process.
There were many flaws in the Lloyd Rayney case, but we are going to talk about the main 3 principles of justice which have not been followed. These principles are Everyone is equal before the law, the judiciary is independent and impartial and the presumption of innocence. Lloyd had not been treated equally prior to his arrest or detainment as the police had arrested him in front of the supreme court. This was strategically planned by the police as there was previously a lot of media attention around the supreme court surrounding Lloyd and having his arrest there could get more headlines within the media making the verdict of the jury biased. The police could’ve arrested Lloyd privately within his house which they had access to 24/7 but rather pick the option which would cover the most media attention. This was an unfair move by the police as Lloyd was not treated as innocent before proven guilty meaning that the principle of (presumption of innocence) has been broken. Lloyd had also not been treated equally by the press as he was consistently harassed by the
public throughout the day when entering, leaving court and the general public. There was no hard evidence that proved Lloyd guilty, and he was not the only suspect. There were initially 3 suspects including himself, but the main investigator of this case (Sergeant Jack Lee) named Lloyd Rayney as the prime suspect with no reasonable cause besides the fact that he was (Corryn Rayney’s) Husband.
Another principle of justice that has been neglected is that the judiciary is independent and impartial. The jury had been heavily influenced by the media. There was no surprise that the jury was influenced by the media as this was the biggest homicide case WA has seen in its time so there was no doubt that the media was going to extract as much as they could out of it this case. In all cases, it is required for the judiciary to be independent and impartial, but they were not within the case against Lloyd. Another principle that had been unsupported was high-quality evidence. There was no solid evidence within the case that guaranteed that Lloyd was guilty but rather small accusations from the government to keep their case alive. The government had failed to fill the gaps within the evidence when presenting it to the court as there was always something that didn’t match up. An example of this would be when the police accused Lloyd of carrying Corryn throughout the backyard which contained a certain type of spike ball plant which was further found in Corryn’s hair within her dead body. The flaw in this evidence is that when Corryn had first been investigated, there had been no spike balls in her hair but when they proceeded to do another check the next day, there was a spike ball dangled in her hair. The judge had found this very hard to believe as the spike balls were decently big, so the evidence was dismissed.
There were many principles that were comprised but
there was one clear principle that had been followed. This principle is the right to a fair hearing which had been followed through the court trial. When Rayney was named the prime suspect of the investigation, he had received a lot of backlashes from the public and press which attracted the attention of the jury and swayed their view on the case as this happened prior to the opening of the case. Lloyd had requested a case without juries which was accepted by the court upon request. This is an easy principle for the court to follow and fortunately followed for Lloyd’s case. This was a smartly planned move as it is bad to have a jury that has negative views on you before the precedence of the case. The case would not be fair in any way if the jury had not been changed as they are in charge of the guilt.
Lloyd’s case had been unfair from the very beginning. From being the prime suspect to constantly being harassed in public is not fair to anyone. Most principles of justice had been instantly violated and Lloyd had not brought justice. This puts anyone in a tough situation in the legal sense as winning a case with all those allegations and lack of principle following can have a toll on a case. This case absolutely destroyed Lloyd’s legal career and private life as he was consistently in the spotlight with cameras flashing all around him. Now looking back, there had been a lack of high standards within this court case which made it an unrighteous and a biased court trial towards Lloyd.