Appeals

Earlier this year I wrote about the appeal from the Mt Maunganui pack-rape case. I was equally disgusted at the Crown and defence lawyers:

The defence are appealing against the fact that rape shield laws didn't allow them to enter evidence about the woman's sexual history. These are the sorts of witnesses they want to use:

An e-mail from one statement-maker to another described the complainant as a "slapper" and described the alleged incident as "a good fun time".

Although the Crown lawyer isn't my favourite person either:

The Crown's other lawyer, Mark Zarifeh, defended remarks he had made to the jury at the end of the trial. He agreed that it would have been better if he had not said that, if the defence was to be believed, the complainant was a slut, but said it still starkly highlighted the contrast between the two sides.

The reason it was a bad idea, because even if she was a 'slut' she can still refuse to have sex with people.

I'm glad to say that particular appeal failed, and three of the men had all their appeals thrown out. One man was granted a re-trial and freed on bail because the judge didn't sum up his defence properly, which seems to me a much better grounds for an appeal than 'we didn't get to call her a slut'. The man who was granted an appeal is not one of the two men who previously had name suppression, but he has name suppression now.