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Court of Criminal Appeal 29 August 2002

REGINA v GOSLING

[2002] NSWCCA 351

Homicide
MURDER CONVICTION APPEAL ADEQUACY OF DIRECTIONS APPEAL DISMISSED

Citation: Regina v Gosling [2002] NSWCCA 351
Court: New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal
Date: 29 August 2002
Judge(s): Adams J, Heydon JA, Levine J

Background

The appellant was convicted of murder following the fatal shooting of a man with a shotgun at a residential property at Banora Point on the night of 15 November 1999. The shooting arose from a dispute over tenants at a property, after the mother of a co-accused alleged she had been assaulted and humiliated by the deceased earlier that day. The appellant and two others travelled to the property, and the appellant fired the weapon.

At trial, the appellant had mid-proceedings sought to plead guilty to manslaughter, though the prosecution did not accept that plea in discharge of the murder indictment. The trial therefore continued, and the jury ultimately convicted the appellant of murder while convicting his co-accused only of manslaughter. He was sentenced to sixteen years' imprisonment with a twelve-year non-parole period.

The defence case rested on two overlapping grounds: that the appellant was significantly intoxicated at the time of the shooting (having consumed alcohol and marijuana), and that he was suffering from a mental disorder. Together, these were said to be relevant both to a partial defence under section 23A of the Crimes Act 1900 (substantial impairment by abnormality of mind) and to the question of whether the prosecution had established the required mental state for murder.

  • Whether the trial judge's directions adequately addressed the intersection of intoxication and mental disorder, particularly in relation to the section 23A partial defence
  • Whether the jury was left with the false impression that the appellant's psychiatric condition was irrelevant to the question of mental state (mens rea) for murder
  • Whether the trial judge sufficiently directed the jury on the burden and standard of proof as they applied to the mens rea issues

Decision

The Court dismissed the appeal on all grounds. Adams J, with whom Heydon JA and Levine J agreed, found that reading the summing-up as a whole, the jury directions were adequate and did not leave the jury with a misleading impression about the relevance of the appellant's psychiatric condition to the question of intention.

The trial judge had correctly excluded intoxication from the section 23A analysis. Intoxication is, as a matter of law, a separate consideration from mental disorder for the purposes of that partial defence. The Court found there was no real risk that the jury would have reasoned from that exclusion to a broader, incorrect conclusion that the appellant's psychiatric condition was also irrelevant to mens rea generally.

Critically, the trial judge had explicitly directed the jury to consider the psychiatric evidence when assessing the appellant's mental state at the time of the shooting. The directions identified both ways in which the evidence could cut: the appellant's impulsivity (tending against a finding of specific intent) and his increased irritability and reported "red" episodes (which could tend the other way). Those balanced directions made clear that the psychiatric evidence remained live on the murder charge.

The Court found that earlier directions in the summing-up had also sufficiently addressed the applicable burden and standard of proof on the mens rea questions. No misdirection was established.

Orders Made

  • Appeal dismissed

Key Takeaways

  • In dismissing the appeal, the Court of Criminal Appeal confirmed that a summing-up must be read as a whole, and isolated passages will not found an error if the overall directions adequately convey the correct legal position to the jury.
  • A trial judge's correct exclusion of intoxication from a section 23A (substantial impairment) analysis does not, of itself, create a risk that the jury will treat psychiatric evidence as irrelevant to the separate question of mens rea for murder.
  • Where a defence raises both intoxication and mental disorder, directions must make clear that psychiatric evidence remains relevant to the mental element of the charge even where it has been properly excluded from a partial defence assessment.
  • Sufficient explicit direction on the relevance of psychiatric evidence to intent, including identification of the competing inferences available on that evidence, will ordinarily satisfy the requirement for adequate jury directions on mens rea.
  • A mid-trial guilty plea to manslaughter that is not accepted by the prosecution in discharge of the indictment does not prevent the trial proceeding on the murder charge, and an admission implicit in that plea (such as that the act was voluntary) remains part of the evidence at trial.

Legislation and Cases Referenced

Legislation:
- Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), including section 23A (substantial impairment by abnormality of mind)
- Mental Health (Criminal Procedure) Act 1990 (NSW)
- Criminal Appeal Rules (NSW)

Cases:
- Murray v The Queen [2002] HCA 26