Self-defence explained
Others have successfully argued self-defence in murder trials. Why didn’t it work for Michael Murray?
ON THE night of August 3 last year Michael Murray said he was watching his younger brother Stanley being beaten to a pulp. A big ‘‘bulky’’ guy had grabbed Stanley by the hair and ‘‘ragdolled’’ him – shaking him with such ferocity he appeared like a toy doll.
‘‘Leave my brother alone,’’ Murray shouted, later claiming his words fell on deaf ears. A wave of Head Hunters gang members had suddenly descended on Murray’s West Auckland home, he said. Paramedics would recall it looked like a war zone.
Ambulance officer Paul Farrow later said he was so terrified he decided to ‘‘load and go,’’ not bothering to stick around for more carnage.
Remembering he had been using a sickle to cut grass earlier in the day to make space for a dog kennel, Murray headed back to the direction of his house to grab the garden implement. Returning, ‘‘he directed his blow so the blade of the sickle entered the man’s head with enough force to break the skull,’’ crown prosecutor David Johnstone told the trial.
The man dropped instantly. A woman’s scream rang out: ‘‘He f....... killed him.’’
Connor Morris, 26, was dead in an instant, killed after earlier celebrating a housewarming in Don Buck Rd in the West Auckland suburb of Massey with his girlfriend Millie Elder-Holmes, the daughter of late broadcaster Paul Holmes.
While Morris was partying that night, further down the street another party was taking place, but was being evacuated after it got out of control.
Michael Murray lived on the same driveway as the party’s host but hadn’t attended, although brother Stanley had been celebrating there when he left with a friend, an ‘‘eight out of 10 drunk’’ Trevor Morunga, 17.
Murray decided to join them for a walk up the street to get more drinks.
The trouble started when Morunga took offence when a passerby on the street refused to shake his hand. He kicked the man in the head in retaliation.
‘‘Just being an egg, just being an idiot,’’ Morunga described as his reasoning for attacking the man. But he had chosen the wrong man to pick on. Retaliation was quick to come. And it would change Michael Murray’s life.
A wave of Head Hunters, all dressed in black, descended on Murray, his brother and Morunga. ‘‘Big men. Angry,’’ Murray’s lawyer, Marie Dyhrberg claimed pointedly during her closing address.
As Michael Murray saw his brother being beaten, the law allowed him to act, Dyhrberg said. The law said he could take preventive action to help his brother without waiting for further bloodshed.
‘‘Michael Murray did not have to wait for his brother to be completely smashed, seriously injured, maybe fatally, before the law says he could take some preventive action for him. He had genuine fears for the safety of his brother, and so he swung the sickle that struck Connor Morris.’’
But the key test in self-defence cases is the force you use to defend yourself – is it proportionate to the threat you are defending yourself or your loved one against?
SELF-DEFENCE is one of the few defences available to defendants in a murder or manslaughter case, which can see them win a complete acquittal, alongside an insanity defence (which isn’t a get out of jail free card because defendants are often admitted to psychiatric wards) or compulsion (defendants were threatened or blackmailed to commit an offence).
Last year Allen Lum shot Joshua Roach dead in his driveway but wasn’t charged with Roach’s death after claiming selfdefence. The pair had been arguing about a smashed truck and driveway access when according to Lum and his sons, Roach came out all guns blazing, shooting Allen Lum’s son Ricki in the throat.
Lum went inside, got a shotgun and fired twice at Roach in response, killing him instantly.
University of Auckland faculty of law professor Warren Brookbanks said: ‘‘At the end of the day where a person is acting in lawful self-defence, they are acting against unlawful aggression.
‘‘In effect, the law applauds what they’re doing.’’
In another high profile case, from 2010, career criminal Bruce Jones broke into Grant Gillard’s Auckland pharmacy at 4.30am. Gillard, 68, who went to his shop when the alarm went off, said Jones, 46, rushed at him with a spanner.
After a struggle he managed to restrain Jones in a headlock. But when he released him, Jones collapsed and died. Gillard was not charged – he had acted reasonably in self-defence.
The onus is on the Crown to disprove self-defence, making selfdefence something defendants and lawyers will use if they can, Brookbanks said. But not every case is clear cut. The Crown denied that Connor Morris had been beating up Murray’s brother. They argued Morris had not been involved in the fight.
But, even if he had been fighting, the Crown said Murray had choices when it came to what constituted reasonable force.
If Morris had indeed been assaulting Murray’s brother, then Murray would have every right to attack him with his fists, to push him or kick him.
That level of reaction would have been ‘‘wholly appropriate,’’ Crown prosecutor Johnstone said.
But you can’t bring a knife to a fist fight, Johnstone said, in what is a classic line in self-defence cases, setting the rule of thumb to measure what is an appropriate response to defend yourself or a loved one.
And Murray had gone even further – he brought a longhandled sickle to take on a weaponless Morris. This is what made the killing of Connor Morris murder – not self-defence.
The key test in self-defence cases is the force you use to defend yourself – is it proportionate to the threat you are defending yourself or your loved one against?