It is difficult to put aside our righteous disgust at his bullying violence on that night, but that’s what we as citizens in a liberal and progressive democracy must do. We have a Judiciary who is asked to stand above the anger and make decisions on punishment that are beneficial to the wider community.
The right to decide how you will be judged is an incredible protection, but if you are constantly sourcing a Jury that are as ignorant and biased as the person committing the rape, then you will never see justice.
Senior Police would have known all about this which is why Police have always had good reason not to have Malcolm Rewa exposed to too many questions. That is why Teina Pora went to prison in the first place and why it has been so hard to get him released.
Admittedly, there is nothing so obvious and egregious to the Watson case that has yet come out as the planted bullet which did in Arthur Allan Thomas – but even taking a cursory run-through of the case and judgements against Watson, it would be exceedingly hard to argue that his conviction is in any way “safe”.
It’s important not only because it’s the first time a serving inmate has criminally prosecuted anyone, it’s important because it will show that the Police ought to have done the prosecution themselves years ago
Our love of locking people up has been manipulated so much so that we don’t actually care anymore if innocent people are trapped within our prison system. The Government won’t even consider if we have innocent people in prison, which is why a group of academics have had to step in and build an innocence project themselves.