Vinaccia v The Queen
Court of Appeal
T Forrest, Emerton and Walker JJA
07/06/2022
[2022] VSCA 107
Criminal law — Appeal — Conviction — Whether jury verdict unreasonable — Child homicide by unlawful and dangerous act or criminal negligence — ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome’ / ‘abusive head trauma’ — Applicant alleged to have shaken infant and caused death — Whether open to jury reasonably to exclude alternative hypotheses consistent with innocence
Criminal law — Appeal — Conviction — Application to adduce evidence not presented at trial — Whether evidence new or fresh — Whether substantial miscarriage of justice — Criminal Procedure Act 2009 (Vic), s 276
Criminal law — Evidence — Admissibility — Opinion evidence of ‘triad’ of clinical features used to diagnose abusive head trauma — Whether probative value of evidence outweighed by danger of unfair prejudice — Evidence Act 2008 (Vic), s 137
Criminal law — Evidence — Expert witness — Slides from presentations given by expert — Whether obligation to disclose slides to defence — Whether slides showed expert gave misleading evidence or was not impartial — Whether substantial miscarriage of justice
Words and phrases — ‘abusive head trauma’ — ‘inflicted head trauma’ — ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome’
Read the judgment here.