6. Lawful Subversion of the Criminal Justice Process? Judicial, Prosecutorial, and Police Discretion in Edmondson, Kindrat, and Brown

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Lucinda Vandervort’s chapter takes a detailed look at the Edmondson, Kindrat, and Brown prosecutions, also discussed by Elder Campbell, Priscilla Campeau, and Tracey Lindberg in the previous chapter. These cases involved three non-Aboriginal men accused of sexually assaulting a twelve-year-old Aboriginal girl. This saga, like the Louise Nicholas trials presented earlier by Julia Tolmie, was fraught by many legal errors, resulting in long and complex proceedings, including two jury trials, several appeals, and two retrials. Lucinda argues that the failure to adhere to the applicable law governing the prosecution of sexual assault allows decision-makers to rely on racial and sexual biases, stereotypes, and irrelevant “facts,” as also seen in the previous chapter. She highlights the unbearable burden placed on this young witness by a process that failed to adhere to the law of sexual assault and, in turn, reinforced the public impression that the race, sex, and age of complainants and accused can be used to subvert justice. Lucinda advocates a combination of innovative systemic remedies and incremental changes in police, prosecutorial, and judicial policy and practice to secure more effective enforcement of the sexual assault laws