The Arthur Easton case

A very interesting story in the NZ Herald on a potential miscarriage of justice.

I think far more guilty people get off, than innocent people get convicted. And that is of course how it should be. But most of the high profile murder cases, I think the Police got the right person. The Peter Ellis case is different as I don’t actually think there was any criminal offending in the first place.

But this case does ring alarm bells:

Arthur Easton was fatally stabbed in his Papakura house as he and his six-foot sons fought an intruder.

The boys, aged 16 and 18, described the offender as “a black b******” of about their height. The fatal wounds were delivered by a bayonet which the boys noticed only at the end of the fight and which was in the intruder’s right hand.

It happened about 8pm on 13 October 1985 and Arthur Easton, who was 52, died at the scene.

Three motorists driving nearby reported seeing a Maori or dark-skinned male running in suspicious circumstances.

Police began a search for a strong, tall, right-handed Maori but ended up arresting a shy, asthmatic, 5′ 8″, left-handed, European named Alan Hall from a family not previously known to police.

Okay so why did they arrest him?

But it wasn’t as though there was no evidence against Hall. Two pieces of evidence from the scene a Swiss bayonet and a woollen hat pulled from the offender’s head belonged to Hall. Now 49, Hall volunteered that information to police during a routine neighbourhood doorknock but didn’t help himself by giving inconsistent explanations about what happened to them lost, stolen, thrown out. Hall’s explanation for those inconsistencies is that he was afraid; he’d never before been questioned by the police. The family say they believe the bayonet and hat were stolen from the sleepout earlier, along with cash and other clothing.

Hall’s problems escalated from there. He’d taken a solo walk on the evening of the murder and so had no alibi.

Okay I can see why he was a strong suspect.

There was no blood, not a single hair from the woollen hat or a fingerprint to put Hall at the scene. During the violent struggle, one of the Easton boys clubbed the intruder over the head with a squash racket until the racket broke and yet no one from Hall’s work reported any marks on him next morning.

And neither of the boys identified Hall. They had the impression the intruder was tall and dark-skinned.

Central to the Innocence Project’s petition is what happened to the evidence of three motorists. They separately reported seeing a “Maori” or “dark-skinned” man running in suspicious circumstances from the direction of the Easton property about the time the 111 call was made. But neither the defence, the judge nor jury got to hear this.

Because of their location, it is unlikely the motorists saw the same man but none of the descriptions matched Hall.

None of the fleeing “Maori” sightings were necessarily connected with the killing, but when you consider the two sons also described the offender as dark skinned, that would be some coincidence if none of them were the offender.

Ronald Turner was considered an important witness because the suspicious man he saw was near to where a police dog tracked the intruder.

After hearing a radio report later that night about a murder, Turner rang police and described the person he saw as a “male Maori”. Next day he repeated the description in a written statement adding, that the man kept looking around and ran off down an alleyway.

“When he turned around I could definitely see he was dark skinned, he was not white.”

Police visited Turner again four months later – by which time Hall had become the prime suspect – and pressed Turner about whether he was sure. According to the statement taken that day, Turner said: “I am 100 per cent sure he was a Maori … I do not feel he was a Pakeha, not even a dark skinned one.”

None of these statements made it to court. Instead, the only statement from Turner that police put forward omitted all reference to colour or ethnicity and Turner was not called to give evidence in person.

This raises two questions for me. The first is whether it is proper for the Police to use only part of a witness’ statement. The second is wouldn’t the defence have been given a copy of the full statements from all witnesses, and was the defence counsel not up to the job if he didn’t raise them in court?

Overall, based just on the newspaper report, I have to say that it is hard to say there is not reasonable doubt.