A link to the Cardinal Pell decision itself & a question

[dochawk]

I was quite puzzled when the grounds for the appeal, ie. “unsafe verdict”, were revealed, as I well remember visiting the high court building in Canberra and the guide explaining that the court only rules on matters of law, not fact, from which I got the impression that a jury verdict itself was not open to re-consideration, but just whether there had been a legal slip along the way, ie. basically a “technicality”.

the fact-finder (sometimes a jury, sometimes a judge) gets extremely strong deference on appeal, while a legal finding gets no deference.

So the facts don’t get re-weighed on appeal. However, whether a reasonable man could reach a particular conclusion from the evidence presented is a legal, rather than a factual question.

And, yes, it is very rare for a court to make such a finding. (we would like to think that this is because juries are usually reasonable . . .)

 

[Edmundus1581]

@dochawke Thanks so much for that succinct explanation of where I was right about the appeal court, and where I went wrong.

Got it!

This seems to be the central point:

However, whether a reasonable man could reach a particular conclusion from the evidence presented is a legal, rather than a factual question.

 

[dochawk]

yes–that is why what your tour guide told you and what I wrote above don’t conflict