Supreme Court hearing date for Lundy
Mark Lundy’s bid for the highest court in New Zealand to hear his appeal against his convictions for murdering his wife and daughter is taking another step forward.
A hearing is scheduled in the Supreme Court in Wellington on Thursday next week as Lundy’s legal team seeks permission for the court to consider the appeal.
The short hearing next week is before two judges, rather than a full panel of five.
Lundy’s legal team is arguing that the Court of Appeal was wrong when it ruled that no miscarriage of justice took place at his retrial, which included crucial scientific evidence that shouldn’t have been allowed.
The seven-week retrial included evidence from Dutch scientist Dr Laetitia Sijen, who used a technique called RNA to conclude it was 58 per cent probable that tissue in a stain on a polo shirt found in Lundy’s car was human brain or spinal cord, linking Lundy to the crime scene.
The Court of Appeal ruled this evidence should never have been allowed at the retrial, because it was scientifically invalid, but still dismissed Lundy’s appeal.
In seeking permission for the Supreme Court to hear the case, Lundy’s legal team said the Court of Appeal ruling failed to take into account the ‘‘illegitimate and unfair bolstering effect’’ of the evidence, and the unfairness of Lundy having to respond to inadmissible evidence.
Lundy, now 60, was convicted for a second time in 2015 of killing wife Christine, 38, and daughter Amber, 9, in their Palmerston North home in a frenzied attack in the early hours of an August 2000 morning. Lundy said he was away in Wellington at the time.
His earlier convictions were overturned by the Privy Council, before the Crown presented a much-changed case at his retrial.