Judicial Commission of NSW Annual Report 2017-18

Judicial Commission of NSW — Annual Report 2017–18 44 Providing legal information Public website usage records growth There has been a 28.2% increase in the use of our publicly available online resources: (see Table 6 below). The most accessed resources were the Civil Trials Bench Book and the Criminal Trial Courts Bench Book . There has been over 25% growth for both these bench books. The Civil Trials Bench Book provides information about all aspects of running civil proceedings and rules about evidence admitted in civil trials. The Criminal Trial Courts Bench Book provides a constantly updated compendium of the relevant case law and legislation that applies when conducting a criminal case. The detailed information on practice is supplemented with procedural guidelines, suggested jury directions and sample orders. The Sentencing Bench Book had 24.6% growth. This resource provides information and legal principles relevant to sentencing law in NSW and for Commonwealth offences that NSW courts decide. More information about our published resources is found in Appendix 8. Case study: Explaining what “beyond reasonable doubt” means in a criminal trial Before someone can be convicted of a criminal offence, the prosecutor must prove to the jury (or judge in a judge-alone trial) the accused’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt based on the evidence put before the jury. During a murder trial, the trial judge directed the jury that the Crown Prosecutor was required to satisfy them of guilt “not beyond any doubt, but beyond reasonable doubt” and that a doubt held by a jury is, by definition, a reasonable doubt. The accused was convicted of murder and he appealed. The Victorian Court of Appeal decided that the trial judge’s gloss on the meaning of a reasonable doubt was a mistake and ordered a retrial. The Crown appealed to the High Court of Australia. The High Court found the Victorian Court of Appeal was in error and reinstated the original conviction. The High Court said that a trial judge should generally avoid directing a jury in terms which contrast proof beyond reasonable doubt with proof beyond any doubt. However, in the circumstances of this case, it was not a mistake to do so and did not result in a substantial miscarriage of justice. The High Court said that if a trial judge does mention the distinction, the question is whether the words spoken are such that the jury would have derived a false perception of the basis for deciding whether the Crown has proved its case. That question can be decided by taking the trial judge’s summing up as a whole and as a jury listening to it might understand it. In this case, the jury could not have been left in any uncertainty as to the true meaning of the need for proof beyond reasonable doubt. At the outset of the trial, the judge had correctly explained that proof beyond reasonable doubt is the highest standard of proof known to the law, requiring a much higher standard of satisfaction than the proof required in civil trials (on the balance of probabilities). The High Court encouraged judges to contrast the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt with the lower civil standard of proof. The High Court said making this distinction is an effective means of conveying to a jury that being satisfied of guilt beyond reasonable doubt does not simply mean concluding that the accused may have committed the offence charged, or even that it is more likely than not that the accused committed the offence charged. What is required is a much higher standard of satisfaction, the highest known to the law: proof beyond reasonable doubt. We published a summary of this decision* on JIRS and in the Judicial Officers’ Bulletin . * The Queen v Dookhea (2017) 91 ALJR 960 Table 6. Website use of our resources 2013–18 2013–14 hits/mth 2014–15 hits/mth 2015–16 hits/mth 2016–17 hits/mth 2017–18 hits/mth Change % Civil Trials Bench Book 24,230 26,532 30,839 38,435 49,531 28.9 Criminal Trial Courts Bench Book 18,618 19,668 21,451 27,702 34,818 25.7 Sentencing Bench Book 20,082 22,069 23,919 29,682 36,982 24.6 Local Court Bench Book 8,634 11,458 12,176 16,347 21,934 34.2 Equality Before the Law Bench Book 171 208 303 817 1,684 106.1 Sexual Assault Trials Handbook 2,035 2,207 2,151 3,249 3,010 -7.4 Sentencing Trends & Issues 4,449 5,200 4,741 759 2,030 167.4