Image: Alice Springs News Online
By KIERAN FINNANE 23 November 2017 Alice Springs News Online
After four hours of deliberation, the jury in the trials of five Peace Pilgrims have yet to deliver a verdict. They will return to their deliberations tomorrow.
Although it is a joint trial, the jury must consider the evidence separately in relation to each defendant and find the charges proven beyond reasonable doubt. The verdicts must be unanimous.
It is not open to them, as a matter of law, to find the accused not guilty because they believed the law under which they are being judged is “unfair, unreasonable or too harsh”. Justice John Reeves spelled this out in his directions to them.
This, he explained, was just as it was not open to the five accused to choose which laws to obey.