Smith v The Queen (Jamaica): PC 23 Jun 2008

The defendant appealed his conviction for murder, making new submissions as to identification.
Held: Lord Carswell, giving the judgment of the Board, declined to deal in detail with both submissions upon suggested flaws in the summing up and arguments relating to the quality of an identification, saying of the first at that: ‘Many of the points made at some length . . were simply not issues which should be brought before the Privy Council in a criminal appeal. It is well established that such issues should be confined to points of law of sufficient significance or matters which tend to show that a serious miscarriage of justice may have occurred.’
Of the second he said: ‘Their Lordships do not propose to examine the evidence about the lighting, since they will not act as a second court of appeal and their function is to satisfy themselves that there has been no serious miscarriage of justice in basing a conviction on the evidence given in the case.’

Judges:

Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Hope of Craighead, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, Lord Carswell, Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood

Citations:

[2008] UKPC 34

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

Commonwealth

Cited by:

CitedAckerley v HM Attorney General of The Isle of Man (Isle of Man) PC 31-Jul-2013
The appellant challenged his conviction for sexual assault, saying that the court had not made sufficient allowance for his autism, and in particular that his confession was actually evidence of echolalia, the repetition of what had been said to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Criminal Practice

Updated: 17 July 2022; Ref: scu.270796