A " Retrial " decision !

For the past nineteen years David Eastman has been incarcerated in an ACT prison cell.  He had been convicted of the shooting murder in 1989 of senior ACT Police chief Colin Winchester and at his 1995 trial  sentenced to life imprisonment.  Despite a litany of appeals, until now that conviction has been upheld.

The ACT Supreme court this week quashed that conviction.  The court found that " the central feature of the circumstantial case against him has been demonstrated to be baseless ".  It seems that this revolved around gunpowder residue allegedly taken from the boot of Eastman's car which was linked to the shooting by a scientific procedure and the opinion of an expert - that has now been disproved.

Eastman is free on bail and the court has  recommended a retrial - but that will be at the discretion of the ACT's Director of Public Prosecutions.  It seems that many conflicting pressures will come into play, not the least of which will be the fact that some witnesses who gave evidence at that 1995 trial are now dead.  It is hard to see how a new trial can possibly link events that are decades old to enable a jury to come to a safe decision.

The original murder investigation singled out Eastman because he was a loner with a paranoid personality.  He was a former Treasury official who had been dismissed and was obsessive in trying to regain his old job and had been harassing Winchester over evidence presented in an earlier court action.   The fact that the shooting victim was a senior police officer made the investigating police determined to achieve a satisfactory conviction to end the matter.   This was despite rumours that Winchester's murder may have been a Mafia hit because Police actions were closing down Marijuana farming that was delivering profits to that closed society.

Of course another matter that will loom large in the thinking of those tasked with making the retrial decision - will be the compensation issue.   If Eastman is retried and convicted, that matter will not be an issue, but if the retrial is abandoned - or worse - he is found not guilty then he will be entitled to a degree of compensation that will put a significant dent in the public purse.   It is likely that this will have a great deal of impact on whatever decision is finally made.

Eastman had served nineteen years of his sentence, and in this world of twenty-first century justice the maximum sentence for murder is usually twenty years.   Under normal circumstances, he would be just a year away from being considered for parole.   The sticking point would have been the fact that the murder victim was a police officer - and Eastman had neither admitted guilt nor shown remorse for the crime.   Those are both the required requirements for parole to be considered.

Whatever that decision, it also raises another disturbing issue.   If Eastman is innocent, then the murderer of Colin Winchester is unpunished - and no doubt enjoying a free life.   If so, the case needs to be moved into the " cold case " orbit and actively re-investigated.    Considering that this conviction apparently revolved around a scientific interpretation of gun powder residue, it it possible that the miracles of modern technology can bridge the chasm of years - and shed new light on the matter.

But first, the police need to be convinced that they got things wrong !