In July of 2009 a crime in Sydney shocked Australia. When a suburban newsagency failed to open early on Sunday morning to deliver the weekend papers, enquiries at the newsagents home revealed that the entire family had been brutally bashed to death in their beds.
Norman Lin (45), his wife Lily (43), her sister Irene (29) and the Lin sons Henry (12) and Terry (9) had been the victim of an intruder. The police found no evidence of a forced entry and the electricity had been cut off at the meter. These murders resulted in a long and careful police investigation.
Eventually, the family brother in law, Robert Xie wass arrested and faced prosecution. Xie protested his innocence and claimed to have been asleep in his own bed alongside his wife on the night of the murder, and this was corroberated by his wife.
Four times Xie faced a jury and three of those trials were abandoned when the jury failed to reach a verdict. That fourth trial reached culmination when the judge took the unusual step of allowing a majority verdict instead of a unanamous verdict in Januarty 2017. Xie was subsequently sentenced to five life sentences, to be served without access to parole.
What is believed to be the damning evidence was referred to as " stain 91 ". This consisted of a blood stain on the floor of Xie's garage and it was claimed that it contained DNA evidence from both of the Lin children and two of the adults. The prosecution made use of a DNA " expert " and this appeal claims he went far beyond his area of expertise and intruded into the jury's role.
It is clear the prosecution offered no evidence on the age of the stain and it is believed that the Lin children often played in Xie's garage and he was frequently visited by the entire family. The judge took the precaution of warning the jury about what she called the " CSI effect " where DNA claims made on an American crime show often veered well beyond the parameters that exist at that time.
Under Australia's " double jeapardy " laws had Xie been found not guil;ty at those abandoned trials he could not have been retried. Because the jury failed to reach a verdict he could have faced new trials endlessly and many would assume that these failures showed that the prosecution failed to present a clear case of guilt.
The public will await the outcome of this appeal with interest. Either an innocent man has spent years in prison and the perpetrater of this crime remains free, or the police got the right suspect but botched the case for the prosecution.
Once again, the ever evolving mysteries of DNA are proving critical in the justice system and non technically minded men and women on juries face the task of deciding what they choose to believe. It does not bode well for the future where such evidence seems destined to inevitably land in the court of appeal !
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