gareththomasnz Could you kindly post a link to the audio of the full version?
Gable Tostee
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Hard Cheese
Critical Thinker
Her drunken state would be a defence of necessity. I doubt he had drunk enough to claim intoxication, but I don't know. s 355 allows for justified actions to be considered not to be unlawful detention, I provided such a list of possible circumstances.
Why? He can defend himself on using any or all factors that might have applied to the situation. He could certainly claim he was under duress, she was throwing rocks at him and attacking him with a telescope clamp.
This is not a list of options that require a logical and. They are possible defences for a person facing a deprivation of liberty charge. "Possible defences include...but are not limited to:"
s 355 allows for him to defend his actions as reasonable. You seem to be implying that he has no defence whatsoever, nor is entitled to use any.
This business of stating locking someone on a balcony is unsafe I don't buy in any way shape or form.
I cited the case earlier of Mike Bastion, and those who knew the circumstances are quite clear, he was trying to evade Chinese individuals with whom he had done a deal to launder 300 million through financial markets. Unfortunately he lost the money. He was alone in the apartment when they knocked, and it appears he tried to climb down from the balcony to evade them, and fell to his death. The person telling the story of course embellished it by saying he threw them, but that is not born out by eyewitness testimony, people saw him try to climb down.
Of course in Hong Kong there was no investigation, but IMO that is far closer to a crime than this case. Even there, the defence would have a field day for the Chinese.
A balcony has railings deemed safe, no horizontal railings and so on. The singular feature of this case is that Tostee was clearly putting a firewall between himself and this woman, end of story. After reading today's news story I will inflame lionking and others by declaring him totally innocent.
However, so are many people who become victims of prosecutorial over reach and morons on the jury.
It actually sounds very similar. Early in the thread, I linked a news article explaining that the crown were attempting to prove that Wright was in such fear for her life that she felt she needed to escape from her "confinement". (Some don't like the words "imprisoned" and "detained")
The charge relating to that is 'Causing Death by Threats' Criminal Code 1899 - SECT 295
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/qld/consol_act/cc189994/s295.html
As I corrected you earlier, locking her on the balcony turned out to be very unsafe. It really is disingenuous to argue that point now. It was unsafe.
The question is, is it reasomable to assume that Tostee would have reasonable foresight of this matter?
It is unsafe with hindsight only.
The great fallacy on this thread is people are arguing the general case from the particular case. I have personally been terrified by my wife, but far more so by great heights.
Who cares if you don't buy it? The law does. Have you been even following this thread?
What a monumentally idiotic post with no relationship to this thread.
Hindsight is what we are dealing with. You play the cards you're dealt.
Had you died during your wife's terrorizing of yourself, and provided anybody cared to pursue it, she could probably be tried with murder under Qld law.
There was humorous intent.
Fear of heights is a powerful evolutionary force, survival, will to live. I might well be alone here, but I regard a high balcony with a high security railing as intrinsically safe under all circumstances that can be sensibly predicted. Indeed this is the heart of the matter, and with luck the jury will use common sense. But the system is systemically flawed. Just yesterday I spoke to a businessman called for jury service, and he is under resourced to take 10 days off, yet earlier was CEO for an engineering concern. He would be ideal.
Let's fuss also about jury caliber. I know what I think.
I think, even if the jury does decide that it wasn't a reasonable consideration that she might try to climb, there is still the matter of the deprivation of liberty being a crime.
Tthe resulting death during that crime makes it murder. Probably reduced to manslaughter. I assume the prosecution can have multiple angles, but ......
No idea how close I am with that. It looks tight to me, it's just the ANAL thing.
Am Not A Lawyer.
Tthe resulting death during that crime makes it murder. Probably reduced to manslaughter. I assume the prosecution can have multiple angles, but ......
No idea how close I am with that. It looks tight to me, it's just the ANAL thing.
Am Not A Lawyer.
Lawyers are obliged professionally to leave common sense at the door. They are always acting for some one, prosecutors, defence attorneys, parties to a divorce. Even appeal court judges are acting for the status quo of the last decision.
You have a winning hand as ANAL, you can dine from the tin labelled common sense with no fear.
This comment shows yet again that you have absolutely no idea of jurisprudence. Prove it or withdraw.
It is well known that the most infrequent judicial event is an appeal against a murder conviction succeeding. I won't catalogue the NZ cases here, but my favourite is the first Lundy appeal.
"To drive that distance in 75 minutes involves an average speed of about 120kpm. The jury were, in our view, entitled to conclude that this was by no means an impossibility"
If this was not possible, the jury had been instructed by the trial judge to acquit.
Scientifically, the correct answer turns out to be 90 kpm.
Common sense left at the door, the appeal court slavishly sanctifying a false belief.
Legally this has never been challenged and that man is still in jail because of that ruling.
Now, this is off topic in a strict sense, so I must show relevance. If this jury convicts Tostee of manslaughter, no argument that balconies are safe because man fears heights will ever get him out. I predict the appeal will be denied, though if I were the defence I would be doing prodigious statistical work to show that this is a one in a million event.
catsmate
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No. If she hadn't be involuntarily locked out on the balcony the alcohol wouldn't have killed her. It's quite simple.
catsmate
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No. The comparison is nonsense.
Did you examine the conversation Tostee had with his father? Not exactly indicative of shock, rather the realisation that he was in trouble.
Hard Cheese
Critical Thinker
The phone call to his father was made 40 minutes after she fell. He didn't sound panicked in the call, but who knows what his state of mind was at the time - he had just seen/heard someone fall 14 floors to their death. As someone else said, he may be been completely on autopilot.
Excuses for the murderer, blame for the victim.
If we're going to speculate then ......
40 minutes after he'd seen Wright fall from his balcony, not "just".
During that 40 minutes, he tried to call his lawyer before he even left the apartment.
Then he took an elevator to the lobby, started to walk to the exit, and had a change of mind. Took the elevator down to the basement and exited the building in the dark.
Easy to imagine his thought process, I think. Don't be seen leaving the building. Police will be responding. Then he wanders around for almost 40 minutes before buying pizza and calling his father. Was he watching the responders?
As for his frame of mind when talking to his father ..... paraphrased.... "why does **** always happen to me?" .... was seemingly a priority in his thought process.