I do not know who wrote the Mulrunji Blues lyrics they are circulating around Australia as an email.

What is preventing the DPP or the Police Commissioner from laying procedural charges? The Officers concerned acted out of depraved indifference. When Police follow the letter of the law, that is the ethical requirements of the Police in the course of exercising their duty, a death in this instance is largely avoidable. Why is it that Indigenous people continue to die in custody at alarmingly impossible rates? Why didn’t Senior Sgt Hurley or other officers have a medical practitioner attend on Mulrunji? Senior Sgt Hurley answers to no-one for the ‘accidental’ death of a person held in custody. Police can cover their tracks by ensuring that mates undertake investigations in order to pervert the course of justice and contaminate evidence.

The whole episode is sad. The death of any person in custody for any reason other than natural causes is tragic. However, there will be no satisfying any person with an entrenched view.

I am no bleeding heart, but the whole sad affair has to be disaggregated. There is the question as to whether this matter should have gone to trial - we'll now wait for Sir Laurence Street's findings.

There is the broader question of many commentators misunderstanding of seperation of powers and legal process. The DPP is not protected by the principal of seperation of powers. The DPP independence comes not from convention but rather from statute law determined by Parliament. However, the Attorney-General can bring a prosecution where he believes its warranted. The DPP was overruled in the Patel extradition deal. Its when it gets to the courts that courts rightly exercise their independence.

Saddest of all, is that yet again we have a demonstration of two standards of law. Aboriginal people should have the same standard of law applied to them and aboriginal people deserve the same protections by the law that apply to everybody else(hence the rightful concern over the revelations of the NT Deputy DPP Nannette Rodgers). If a person breaks the law they should be tried and if guilty sentenced on the same principles that apply to everybody. To do otherwise is an injustice to victims. The Nannette Rodgers stuff showed that black victims got second rate protection in that jurisdiction and there is widespread evidence the same applies more widely. If in custody, a black person deserves the same duty of care as others.

This broader context of two standards of law undermines confidence and reinforces the impression that a different standard applies to Mulringi's tragic death. This does not serve the interests of the victim, the accused or their families. Nobody wins with a double standard legal system.

One standard of law is the only way to mitigate these anxieties into the future. For now, we have to hope Laurence Street can restore some confidence.

IAIN HALL says 'The real question that Rainier and his cohort should answer is this: Now that a legal identity from NSW has been appointed to review the case will you accept that no prosecution should occur if that is the finding of the review.'

Leaving aside the pejorative "cohort", that is just one question - and not all that important at the end of the day.

How about all the other questions that have been raised in this forum? Or even the core question: How did Mulrunji Doomadgee sustain severe internal injuries that caused his death while in custody, and was anyone culpable?

Try these others, IAIN HALL.

1. Why so long after the Deaths in Custody Royal Commission are police still locking up Indigenous Australians for drunk and disorderly behaviour when that was identified as one of the reasons there were so many Aboriginal deaths in custody?

2. In claiming that Mulrunji’s death was an accident, the DPP went beyond her role which was to determine whether the available evidence supported a prosecution. It did not require her to decide whether the death was accidental or not. She did not have the evidence or capacity to support that finding. Why did she make that claim?

3. The Deputy State Coroner found that the police investigation into Mulrunji’s death did not meet the standard required for a death in custody (Deputy Coroner Clements found that officers did not follow correct guidelines by meeting informally and then dining with Sen-Sgt Hurley.) What action, then, has the Police Commissioner or the Government taken to remedy that failure?

4. Did the police act with all propriety in the way they handled Mulrunji Doomadgee's arrest and incarceration? If not, what has been done to discipline the police?

5. Have the police, the police force and the police minister handled this matter competently?

6. And finally, a hypothetical twist on a question raised by IAIN HALL: what might have been the outcome if it were Sergeant Hurley rather than Mulrunji Doomadgee who died in the alleged fracas?

Iain Hall,

The number and quality of posters on this issue is higher than is usual. You are one of the very few who appear defensive of Hurley, the DPP, the Police and the Justice system. Most seem to be at a loss why earlier reforms weren't implemented, why no charges have been laid, why some action isn't taken against Hurley or question the actions of many of the officials involved.

Given the obvious genuine concern over the events surrounding the death in custody what do you think should be done from here?

Frank your questions are answered in turn below

1> Why are so many indigenous people still behaving so badly when they are in their cups? But seriously in the absence of an alternative should the police ignore disorderly drunks if their shin is dark? In small communities there is no alternative.
2> Clare did not definitively claim that Mulrunji’s death WAS am accident she said that it COULD have been one.
3> My understanding is that instruction has been given that ALL deaths in custody will henceforth be treated as a suspicious death. Which should address your concerns on this point
4> I don’t know for sure but then neither do you. You make assumptions here.
5> You are asking me to express an opinion on matters to which I am not privy but it would appear to me that the police department and the Minister have followed the law.
6> I expect that if there was the same evidence against Mulrunji as there is against Hurley then the outcome would be the same; no prosecution would result . The point has always been the amount and quality of what evidence there is that is the reason that no one is to be prosecuted.

Hallwatch claims that “Clare did not definitively claim that Mulrunji’s death WAS am accident she said that it COULD have been one”

Here is what she said in her press release – note the last sentence.

“The evidence suggests that in this case, this could only be the result of a complicated fall. It seems clear that Mr Doomadgee and Senior Sergeant Hurley fell together through the open door of the police station,” Mrs Clare said.

“There were two autopsies. From them we know that neither kicks nor punches are likely to have caused Mr Doomadgee’s death.

On the evidence, the fall is the only satisfactory explanation for the injuries identified by the doctors.

“In other words, the admissible evidence suggests that Mr Doomadgee’s death was a terrible accident.”

http://media01.couriermail.com.au/multimedia/2006/12/061214palmisland/hurley.pdf

As for the rest of Hallwatch’s responses, why bother, much the same as before, lots of weasel sidestepping etcetera. Yawn!