Friday, February 19, 2016

Bulletin: David Eastman: Australia; ABC News reports that his hearing for a permanent stay over the Colin Winchester killing has ended in secret: Reporter Elizabeth Byrne. "David Eastman is facing a long wait to learn if he will face a new trial for the 1989 murder of senior AFP Officer Colin Winchester after his stay application wrapped up in the ACT Supreme Court. Most of the two-week stay application, before Acting Justice David Ashley, was kept secret in a closed court."


"David Eastman is facing a long wait to learn if he will face a new trial for the 1989 murder of senior AFP Officer Colin Winchester after his stay application wrapped up in the ACT Supreme Court.
Most of the two-week stay application, before Acting Justice David Ashley, was kept secret in a closed court. But in the first week Mr Eastman's team laid out a case suggesting he could not get a fair trial. The grounds included an attack on the original prosecution with claims there was a failure to disclose critical information, as well as Mr Eastman's personal circumstances. Volumes of media coverage were also subpoenaed by the legal team as evidence it would now be difficult for Mr Eastman to get a fair trial. Mr Eastman was freed from nearly twenty years in jail in 2014 after a $10 million dollar inquiry found he did not get a fair trial. The inquiry run by Acting Justice Brian Martin uncovered deep flaws in the forensic case which was critical to his conviction. But prosecutors remain determined to run a re-trial, saying there is still a strong circumstantial case despite the passage of years. Assistant Australian Federal Police Commissioner Colin Winchester was shot dead as he arrived home in January 1989. One of the many issues in the case was whether police and prosecutors properly considered whether someone other than Mr Eastman was responsible. One theory has linked the Mafia to the crime. That issue was considered by the Martin inquiry, which produced a sealed report on the matter. Justice Ashley opened the stay hearings saying he would permit reporting because the application was something of a hybrid between a trial and an appellant proceeding. But much of the hearing was suppressed or heard in a closed court."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-19/eastman-stay-application-ends-in-secret/7183438?section=act