A Tale of Podcasts and DNA Lab Failures – Was Queensland's Double Jeopardy Law Reform the Answer?

A Tale of Podcasts and DNA Lab Failures – Was Queensland's Double Jeopardy Law Reform the Answer?

The double jeopardy rule protects persons from being tried and punished twice for the same offence. In Queensland, limited exceptions to this rule have been in operation since 2007. For example, an acquitted person can be retried for murder, where there is “fresh and compelling evidence”, and the re-trial is in the interests of justice. In 2023, after the discovery of DNA testing failures at a state-run Queensland forensic DNA laboratory, the Queensland government introduced a bill expanding these exceptions to additional offences. The bill became law in March 2024. This article ponders whether double jeopardy law reform was needed to respond to the DNA lab shortfalls. It considers the problem, how the new double jeopardy law reform responds to it and whether the introduced law is an appropriate remedy.

This article was first published by Thomson Reuters in the Criminal Law Journal and should be cited as Kerstin Braun, A Tale of Podcasts and DNA Lab Failures – Was Queensland's Double Jeopardy Law Reform the Answer?, (2024) 47 Crim LJ 359. For all subscription inquiries please phone, from Australia: 1300 304 195, from Overseas: +61 2 8587 7980 or online at https://www.thomsonreuters.com.au/en-au/contact.html. The official PDF version of this article can also be purchased separately from Thomson Reuters at http://sites.thomsonreuters.com.au/journals/subscribe-or-purchase.