On July 18, 2009 Australia was shocked when newsagent Min Lin, his wife Lily, their two sons Henry and Terry and Lily's sister Irene were found brutally bashed to death in their beds. It was a brutal crime and for two years the police patiently investigated without making an arrest. Then the Lin's brother in law, Robert Xie was arrested and for the past four years has been held in prison on remand.
This week he faced a judge and jury for his third trial for these murders and that trial lasted an agonising nine months - and came to nothing. The jury deliberated and could not reach consensus on a verdict and were repeatedly given more time. Eventually the judge agreed to accept a majority verdict, requiring eleven of the twelve jurors opinions to be decisive, but again the jury foreperson reported that they were hopelessly deadlocked - and the trial was abandoned. Immediately the DPP announced that it would seek a new trial next year.
Two of the previous trials were similarly abandoned because in one instance the judge became ill and in the second new and explosive evidence emerged after the trial was in progress. It seems that the police case against Robert Xie is very circumstantial and there is a claim that two years after the murder the investigators found a tiny blood spot in Robert Xie's garage that linked him to the crime - and this is disputed by some blood analyst experts. Obviously, the evidence presented in this latest trial was insufficient to convince all twelve jurors to bring in even a majority verdict.
It is possible that when this new trial commences next year there may be a move to dispense with a jury and seek a verdict entirely on the summation of a judge, but that would require agreement from both the DPP and the accused, and that is unlikely. Given the nine months duration of this trial it seems likely that new proceedings may run for a similar term.
Now a new factor has emerged. The silk who has been defending Robert Xie at all his previous trials has announced that he will not be appearing for the defence when he is tried again next year. It seems to be a matter of money. The best legal minds charge hundreds of dollars an hour for their services and Robert Xie is a man of modest means. He has expended his capital and no longer has the funds to pay for the level of legal advice this high profile case deserves, and the DPP will obviously front their finest legal team in search of a conviction.
The law requires that an accused is entitled to a defender and where necessary this is provided from the public purse, but it would be a scandal if this new trial commenced with the accused fronted by a newly minted legal person fresh out of lawyer's school and entirely lacking the experience to do battle with seasoned lawyers the DPP will engage. That is precisely where those seeking a legal career start their working life - as lowly paid employees staffing the public defenders pool while they gain court experience.
Win, lose or draw, this has been a disaster for Robert Xie. His face has adorned newspapers for years and no doubt many of the public have reached a decision based on what they have read about this case. He has spent the past four years as a prisoner locked in a gaol cell and he has liquidated his assets to fund his defence. If this new trial delivers a guilty verdict he will probably spend the rest of his life in the Supermax, but if he is innocent this will have been a ghastly experience that leaves him with the suspicion of guilt, penniless and with little to look forward to in the way of future prospects.
There is the expectation that justice will be served - quickly and impartially. Sheer "happenance " has dogged these trials and they have now devolved into a public spectacle not unlike the contests between gladiators and lions in the coliseum that served for public entertainment in the days of the Roman empire.
In all fairness the public needs to shell out and pickup the tab for the level of defence fielded at earlier trials. Otherwise it would seem that a conviction is purely an avaricious DPP enlisting poverty as the means of burnishing it's credentials as a victor. The fact that this latest jury could not reach consensus after over a week of deliberation surely indicates that the case is not a laid down misere !
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