Aytugrul v R [2010] NSWCCA 272

Reported Decision: 205 A Crim R 157

New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal

CITATION: Aytugrul v R [2010] NSWCCA 272

HEARING DATE(S): 27 May 2010

JUDGMENT DATE: 3 December 2010

JUDGMENT OF: McClellan CJatCL at 1; Simpson J at 124; Fullerton J at 238

DECISION: By majority: Appeal dismissed.

CATCHWORDS: CRIMINAL LAW - appeal against conviction - whether a miscarriage of justice occurred because of the directions given with respect to DNA evidence - whether the verdict of the jury should be set aside on the ground that it is unreasonable or cannot be supported having regard to the evidence - consideration of the admissiblity of DNA evidence in light of s 135 and s 137 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW) - manner of expressing in non-scientific terms the conclusions to be drawn from DNA testing to the jury - jury verdict open and support by the evidence

LEGISLATION CITED: Evidence Act 1995 Criminal Appeal Act 1912

CATEGORY: Principal judgment

Burrell v R [2009] NSWCCA 193 Fleming v R (2009) NSWCCA 223 R v Carroll [2010] SASC 156 R v Doheny and Adams [1996] EWCA Crim 728; (1997) 1 Cr App R 369 R v Duke (1979) 1 A Crim R 39 CASES CITED : R v Gallagher [2001] NSWSC 462 R v Galli (2001) 127 A Crim R 493; [2001] NSWCCA 504 R v GK [2001] NSWCCA 413; (2001) 53 NSWLR 317 R v Karger (2002) 83 SASR 135 R v Noll [1999] VSCA 164; 3 VR 704 Weiss v R (2005) 224 CLR 300; (2005) HCA 81

A Ligertwood, "Avoiding Bayes in DNA Cases" (2003) 77 ALJ 317 JJ Koehler, "On Conveying the Probative Value of DNA Evidence: Frequencies, Likelihood Ratios, and Error Rates" (1996) 67 University of Colorado Law Review 859 "The Psychology of Numbers in the Courtroom: How to Make DNA-Match Statistics Seem Impressive or Insufficient" (2001) 74 Southern California Law Review 1275 JJ Koehler, A Chia & JS Lindsey, "The Random Match Probability (RMP) in DNA Evidence: Irrelevant and Prejudicial?" (1995) 35 Jurimetrics 201) TEXTS CITED: RB Korobkin & TS Ulen, "Law and Behavioral Science: Removing the Rationality Assumption from Law and Economics" (2000) 88 California Law Review 1051, 1088; A Tversky & D Kahneman, "Availability: A Heuristic for Judging Frequency and Probability" (1973) 5 Cognitive Psychology 207 G Hazlitt, "DNA Evidence: Unravelling the Strands" (2002) 14 Judicial Officers Bulletin 9, 66 M Findlay and J Grix, "Challenging Forensic Evidence? Observations on the Use of DNA in Certain Criminal Trials" (2003) 14 Current Issues in Criminal Justice 269 at 274 WC Thompson, "Are Juries Competent to Evaluate Statistical Evidence?" (1989) 52 Law and Contemporary Problems 4 at 13) R Jonakait, "When Blood is their Argument: Probabilities in Criminal Cases, Genetic Markers, and Once Again, Bayes' Theorem" (1983) University of Illinois Law Review 369