From the information I have received on my distant perch, I must say that I would hope the Jury will find Ewen Macdonald Not Guilty.
Simply put: The Crown’s case is Piss weak!
That the Prosecutions final summery was an appeal to ‘common sense’ rather than real evidence says everything.
Yet we live in a country which loves to make convictions irrespective of such principles as ‘Beyond reasonable doubt’.
We have even abandoned the safeguard against wrongful conviction… the principle of unanimous Jury decision! Now that they may convict a defendant even when One Juror thinks the man is innocent is such a massive concession towards injustice it may be likened to changing the wining factor in lotto by only getting any 5 out of the six numbers…ie They have removed *a whole tier* of protection and though I am no mathematician, to my thinking this deviation from established principle is statistically worse than simply reducing the Jury numbers by one yet still calling for a unanimous decision, because They now have a whole tier that is equivalent to one Guaranteed Juror finding the person *guilty *.
(I would appreciate a Mathematician to confirm or correct me on this last point)
The whole point of these safeguards is to reduce the possibility of wrongful conviction, the event of which multipies injustice, and is the very opposite Desideratum of having a justice system. Ie these things are essentials!
It is better to err on the side of Individual Liberty than State authority. (In this case the desires of the police)
*It is Better to allow the odd guilty defendant escape conviction because of lack of evidence, rather than convict innocent defendants*
The reasoning behind removing the protection of unanimous jury decisions was not to improve justice, but to make it easier for the State to get the convictions it wants and save the state money from retrials!
Yet of course that will not save many convictions from applying for appeals!
It really was a stupid and conniving rule change in favour of tyranny.
Will Macdonald be convicted because of the New -1 jury Rule?
I believe the defense has correctly assessed the Prosecutions case and established reasonable doubt.
We live in such an age of petty mindedness…such an unenlightened age of ignorance…. Such an age where all the Crown has to do to get convictions is simply via a process of Character assassination.
And Ewen Macdonad has immerged as a bit of a Dickhead… a bit of a devious bugger.
Thus many people simply don’t like him.
And many mistake the stories of lies, theft, and vandalism, as reason enough to convict him of murder!
Our justice system is called ‘the adversarial system’.
When the Police struggle to find an offender, they are in a habbit of grabbing the closest person and Fabricate a case against them!
This is what happened with Scott Wilson, and David Bain, neither of whom were convicted on incontrovertible evidence, and in both cases evidence, and witnesses which suggested both were innocent were systematically kept out of court by the Prosecution.
With the process of time will it emerge they have done simalar things in this case?
It interests me to note that when the Police first charged Ewan, that His wife, and The widow of Scott Guy both disbelieved that he was guilty, and were united in expressing the Police were crazy… and had the wrong guy!
Yet in the process of building a case against Ewan, The Police have been successful in turning his Family against him!
Is anyone surprised to discover that Ewan lied to his wife about the vandalism?
Is anyone surprised… in the light of the murder … that Ewan lied about it to the police?
Now this may have been the wrong thing to do, yet we ought to be able to understand why. And that he is guilty of these childish activities does not *Prove anything* in respect to the murder. How many of us have ‘ugly’ personal and professional relationships?
Does this mean that if someone we know meets a foul end that we could be pinned with their murder?
The crown has no case. This much is clear.
Tim Wikiriwhi
Update 3-7-12
The NZ Herald ran a front page article in todays edition, regarding the Judges summary of the case for the Jury.
He vidates much of what I have written in this Blogpost.
Update 3-7-12 NOT GUILTY!
I have heard some crap before,but geez Tim, you’re talking crap.
This SOB lied to his wife and police about what you call childish pranks,burning a house down destroying someone’s property,writing profanity on walls is “childish”.
Lock this bastard up for life he is as guilty as sin,and with your pathetic comments you only condone such as you call “childish” acts,no wonder New Zealand has the crime rate it has when so called educated people come up with these kind of statements.
While understanding where you are coming from and agreeing with you about Bain and more particularly Watson, McD displays his lack of innocense and his wife displays her knowledge of his gulit. The fact he will not take the stand and be questioned for all to see indicates that he lacks the ability to withstand the questioning.
There will be no justice done because the case is wek on the part of the proscecution but that doesn’t mean he’s not guilty as charged. Just insufficient evidence.
That will come but in the meantime he will have no life.
The defence also has advanced nothing other then the other person story. The straw man.
Like Lundy before him he is guilty.
Well said, Tim. I, too, find the defendant *Not Guilty*. I think he murdered Scott Guy, but there is reasonable doubt.
But you are wrong, wrong, wrong about Bain … I spent hours and hours reviewing the evidence. The Crown case was rock solid. Had I been on the jury, I would have found him *Guilty As*. Simply put, the jury in the retrial was retarded and Bain’s acquittal was a miscarriage of justice. Having said that, I believe in our justice system, despite its flaws, and accept the retrial verdict.
A couple of interesting comments above…the guy handled 40 hrs of police questioning (all the “juicy” bits shown in court). Dont you think he would have cracked during this if he had something to reveal?
The crown case was built on the feud, the dive boots/footprints, and the shotgun…all of which were roundly refuted by the defense. The defense team only had to call 2 witnesses and spend 1 afternoon questioning after 3 weeks of crown witnesses. This was a complete joke and incredible it made it to trial.
The feud/resentment towards scott were apparent in the arson and vandalism from over 2 years before, but even the crown witnesses admitted that things were going a lot better and even getting along well just before the murder.
The fact that the ESR “scientist” had to admit that the dive boot prints from the scene were a size 11/12, rather than 9 as macdonald wore, made a complete mockery of the case! This was a fundamental of the crown case, but they hadnt even counted the number of tread patterns on the plaster cast! The casts are probably not even proline brand…not to mention that no-on had seen macdonalds dive boots for over 2 years…crazy.
The family shotgun…well. Scotts dad admitted it was in exactly the same place as he left it, also being a place that macdonald was not aware of. The fact the 3 shots, bang, bang, bang, were heard by witnesses, indicates it was probably a semi-auto, not a under-over as the families is. These shots were heard at 5am, about 17mins later than the crown alleges…
The whole case is laughable and if you analyse the crown case you see 2.5 weeks of building up the feud side of the argument and then buggar-all attempt at actually producing hard evidence, because they do not have any.
I really hope the jury do not buy into the feud as “evidence”…
The guy may be guilty, but the way it has been presented so far is an embarrassment to NZers intelligence and another major embarrassment for our police/prosecution “professionalism”.
Thanks for your comments Guys.
I see we have almost the full spectrum of opinion.
I agree with Rust Dog.
Thank you for taking the time to list those points.
And Richard, I was thinking of you when I wrote my comment about Bain. 😉
Re: Macdonald…Don’t you think it is better to say that The Crown did established a possible motive, rather than saying “I think he did it?”
Is it not a mistake to *assume* such a thing?
Viking.
I think you place too much weight upon your own powers of interpretation of body language… he simply ‘looks and acts guilty’ to you.
It is a sad reality which exposes just how pone our justice system is to prejudice, that people do get convicted simply by their appearances, and even get heavier sentences if they are ‘Ugly’.
Even if we ask ourselves how exactly would we act under these circumstances, Is it not absurd to think that everybody ought to behave the same way?
The defense obviously calculated that there was nothing to gain by putting Ewan on the stand, esp in light of the fact that he had already lied to the police… his testimony of innocence would be worth zero, and putting him on the stand would give the Crown one more opportunity to continue with their character assassination.
An interesting case to consider in respect to… ‘Conviction because of the crime of being Ugly’ is that of David Tamahere. I must confess at the time that I thought he looked and sounded *guilty as sin*, yet listening to his appeals after his release, and the fact that the victim was still wearing the watch which the Prosecution said was in`Tamaheres’ possession… I think there is a good chance this man was yet another victim of diabolical Police modus opperandi
Zeeman
Thanks for your comment. You express an opinion which I believe is shared by many Kiwi, and if The Jury convict him it will be obvious they share your type of reasoning too.
Yet it was my purpose in writing this to expose your type of thinking as unprincipled and dangerous. You wish to vent.
You want Ewan to pay for what you call ‘The state of our society’.
You want a conviction… irrespective of the lack of real evidence.
I removed the photos of The Wives as I felt they were unnecessary, and I don’t wish to ‘capitalise’ from their grief. This business is a double tragedy as not only has Scott been murdered, but even if Ewan is found not guilty… he has lost his family.
I agree the crown’s case is weak. Country cops investigating a pre-meditated murder (my view). They didn’t check the farm gun until months later.
I disagree that the arson, damage (all the walls were axed, the place was really bashed up) can be called “childish activities”. If he is found not-guilty of the murder he should certainly be charged and convicted on the theft charges. It is up to his wife to decide whether she wants to stay with a man who steals from his neighbours and is capable of lying and violent acts against her brother and his family even if she doesn’t believe he murdered her brother. I know if I was her I would be terrified he will get found not-guilty as he doesn’t sound like the kind of person you want as an ex-husband with regular contact with your children.
We don’t see and hear all that goes on in a courtroom, only what the media report. If I were the killer, I would not leave my foot prints there. However, I would wear over-sized boots and fire an extra shot to throw the cops off the scent. Experienced hunters are masters of deception. The Crown has really shot itself in the foot during this trial, by asserting details that it didn’t need to. Their incompetence is unreal. The police also are a pretty dumb lot – sharp, but not subtle or intelligent. For example, they should have left the house-burning, etc evidence until the trial, for maximum effect. That is, leave him with the denials made at the interview, then expose them during the trial. I predict a hung jury, with any future trials getting no further.
Intercept…I too would disguise my footprints… glue a smaller sole to the bottom of your boots? Why not throw about some foreign DNA while your at it?. It is interesting to me however to consider the fact that even when evidence does not support the prosecution that a scenario like you have suggested, may be used to disregard this fact.
The Gun blasts cant be faked because of how close together the three shots were herd by the witnesses (multiple) The two shot farm gun would take too long to fire the third round… which is why the Police chose to ignore the witness accounts and argue there were only two shots fired
The witness accounts support the defense, not the Prosecution.
Yet because the Police are political Gameplayers… they know that witness accounts can be faulty… and so they (the Police) ignore them when it suits their purposes to do so.
If the witness had only herd two shots… then the Police would hammer that home… because in that instance it would suit them to insist the witness accounts were ‘reliable’.
Our Human Justice system is so very dubious!
And I wonder… You gotta ask yourself….why he would shoot him? , instead of faking an ‘unfortunate accident’. Shooting is so ‘Loud’. ???
I quite agree with Richard, He has now been found not guilty. I personally think he is guilty allthough not enough evidence to nail him. I think he did not pull the triger but he knows the person that shot Scot Guy. Appeal at this stage will be a waste of time for crown. The police will have to do more digging to the case.
There was no evidence at all!
I don’t know if a murderer necessarily has a better life outside of prison than he does in.