Dragan Cvetkovic v The Queen

[2011] HCASL 133

DRAGAN CVETKOVIC
v
THE QUEEN
[2011] HCASL 133
S28/2011

1. The applicant was convicted following trial of wounding his wife with intent to murder her.  It was not in issue at the trial that the applicant had stabbed his wife over 30 times with a gyprock saw as they sat in their motor vehicle in the car park of a shopping centre.  The incident occurred around 2.00pm and there were five eyewitnesses to it.  There was little dispute about the circumstances of the stabbing or the events leading up to it.  The applicant's defence was that he was acting in a state of non-insane automatism. 

2. The applicant appealed against his conviction to the Court of Criminal Appeal of New South Wales.   He was unrepresented on the hearing of that appeal.  He pressed a very large number of grounds of appeal, each of which was dealt with in the detailed reasons of Campbell JA, who gave the leading judgment.  As Simpson and Whealy JJ pointed out in their joint reasons, a number of the applicant's complaints as to inconsistencies and discrepancies in the evidence were not capable of bearing on the resolution of the single issue presented for the jury's consideration, which was whether the Crown had proved beyond reasonable doubt that the applicant's acts were willed[1].  Their Honours observed that the detailed argument put by the applicant in respect of these matters had tended to confuse what was in reality a simple issue. 

   [1]Cvetkovic v The Queen [2010] NSWCCA 329 at [423] citing R v Falconer (1990) 171 CLR 30 at 39; [1990] HCA 49.

3. The applicant's appeal was dismissed.

4. The applicant applies for special leave to appeal.  His numerous proposed grounds of appeal largely repeat the unsuccessful grounds taken below.  His discursive written case does not come to grips with Campbell JA's reasons for rejecting his complaints.  A contention is that there are unchallenged facts that are consistent with the applicant's innocence.  These are addressed in the careful reasons below.  They do not overcome the difficulty identified by Campbell JA, which is that there was no expert medical support for the hypothesis of automatism[2].  None of the grounds of challenge in the materials filed in support of the application casts doubt on the correctness of the Court of Criminal Appeal's conclusion.  If special leave were granted, the appeal would have no prospects of success.

   [2]Cvetkovic v The Queen [2010] NSWCCA 329 at [137] citing R v Falconer (1990) 171 CLR 30 at 61.

5. The application is dismissed.

6. Pursuant to r 41.10.5 we direct the Registrar to draw up, sign and seal an order dismissing the application.

J.D. Heydon
8 June 2011 V.M. Bell