Aotearoa / New Zealand

Some excepts:

David Tamihere has had his convictions quashed, 36 years after he was found guilty of murdering two Swedish backpackers in the Coromandel.

In a decision released on Tuesday, the Supreme Court directed a retrial but said it was up to the Crown to decide whether one should be held.

The court found there was a fundamental error in Tamihere's 1990 trial which made it unfair - and the Crown case had changed so "radically" since then that it had not actually been tested by a jury.

In 2017, a key witness in crown case, prison informant Robert Conchie Harris was found guilty of perjury .

Tamihere took the case to the Court of Appeal which in 2024 found there had been a miscarriage of justice because of Harris's evidence but it did not quash its conviction because the court remained convinced beyond reasonable doubt that Tamihere was guilty.

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court found the Court of Appeal did not have the right to make a call on Tamihere's guilt after it had found the miscarriage of justice - that could only be made by a jury.