Lawyers acting for Mark lundy have filed an application for leave to appeal to the privy council

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Lawyers acting for Mark lundy have filed an application for leave to appeal to the privy council

Lundy Truth
Published by FACTUAL in Press Release · 2 November 2012
Tags: MarkLundyPrivyCouncil
LAWYERS ACTING FOR MARK LUNDY HAVE FILED AN APPLICATION
FOR LEAVE TO APPEAL TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL


The members of the FACTUAL committee have advised that an Application for leave has been filed with the Privy Council in London, UK against the conviction of Mark Lundy.  This is after Lundy has been incarcerated for more than 10 years.  The jury system has been described as the best we have, but equally described as not perfect.  Miscarriages of justice do occur.  It has been said that a jury is like a computer.  If you input all the correct data you will get a correct answer.  If you input incorrect data you will get an incorrect answer.  This we believe is what happened in the Lundy case.  There is absolutely no criticism of the jury.  They were not informed about the reasonable doubts surrounding much of the evidence.  The internationally renowned  group ‘The Innocence Project’ has freed 301 prisoners who had been wrongfully convicted, including 18 who were on "death row". They estimate that between 2 and 5% of prisoners in the USA are innocent. In New Zealand terms, with approx. 9,000 prisoners, this means that somewhere between 180 and 450 people are in prison for crimes they did not commit.  Retired Justice Sir Thomas Thorp has stated that, in his opinion, "up to 20" people convicted of serious crimes in New Zealand are in fact innocent.  We believe that Mark Lundy is one of those twenty.  The Innocence Project has published data on the most common causes of wrongful convictions.

These are:

  • Eyewitness errors in 71% of cases
  • Forensic science errors 63%
  • Police misconduct 44%
  • Prosecution misconduct 28%
  • False/misleading evidence from forensic scientists 27%
  • Incompetent defence 19%
  • FACTUAL have seen elements of many of these in this tragic episode.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”  Martin Luther King Jr.

Over the years many people have expressed an opinion on the Lundy case, the majority negative.   In our experience these opinions come from people who are totally uninformed. A provincial newspaper has accused FACTUAL members as being "conspiracy theorists" which is laughably untrue.  We just see the probability of an injustice, as described above.  We believe that someone has to do something.  There have been TV documentaries pointing to Lundy's "guilt" and also a cover-story magazine article, and a book, in the same vein.  What is most noteworthy about all these, a disgrace even, is that none of the people involved, none, has bothered to turn up and read the mountains of information that we have, or ask any questions.  Nobody.  Opinions masquerading as facts. Contrast that to Mike White’s article in the North & South magazine Jan 2009, which was well researched and totally objective.  A copy is available on the Lundytruth.com website.

FACTUAL has diligently worked on this case for over 10 years.  We have never been interested in opinions (everyone has those), only the facts.  When the legal people in London had acquainted themselves of the facts, they could see a likely injustice had occurred and offered their services pro-bono. We believe that anyone similarly acquainted with the facts would and will reach the same conclusion.
The filing of our Application is just the beginning.  Many more months will pass before any conclusions are reached.  We are hopeful our quest will be successful, but there are no guarantees.
We thank all those people who have supported us over the years.


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