FED: Cop killer fails in attempt to have conviction overturned

AAP General News (Australia)
04-18-2008
FED: Cop killer fails in attempt to have conviction overturned

CANBERRA, April 18 AAP - The man who murdered a former Australian Federal Police commissioner
has failed in his latest attempt to have his conviction quashed.

David Harold Eastman was sentenced to life imprisonment for gunning down Assistant
Commissioner Colin Winchester in the driveway of his Canberra home in 1989.

Eastman, a former public servant, lost a 1997 appeal to the Full Court of the Federal
Court and a subsequent High Court bid in 2000.

A judicial review of his case was ordered in 2003, with Eastman arguing he was not
fit to plead at the time of his original 1995 trial.

Former ACT Chief Justice Jeffrey Miles ruled, after two years of hearings, that Eastman
had demonstrated sufficient tactical understanding of the trial process and had been able
to instruct his lawyers.

But Eastman sought to reopen his Federal Court appeal, saying Justice Miles stated
during the review that there had been an unresolved question of fitness to stand trial.

Eastman claimed that if the full bench of the Federal Court had inquired into the matter
there would almost certainly have been a retrial and the failure to inquire constituted
a denial of natural justice.

But today the Full Court of the Federal Court dismissed Eastman's application to have
the appeal reopened.

The full bench cited the 1938 Grierson High Court case which had determined that when
"the court has heard an appeal on its merits and given its decision the appeal cannot
be reopened."

In an unanimous decision Justices Jeffrey Spender, Peter Gray and John Logan found
that it appeared "most likely" that the Grierson principle admitted no exceptions.

And even if it did and an appeal could be reopened because of a denial of procedural
fairness, Eastman had "made out no case of any such denial".

"If Mr Eastman had had a claim of bias on the part of the full court, it would have
been open to him to make that claim on his appeal to the High Court," Justices Spender,
Gray and Logan said.

"The allegation of denial of procedural fairness is unsustainable."

AAP jcd/rl/jt/bwl

KEYWORD: EASTMAN

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