My proposition is that "Jihad" Jack Thomas has only himself and his legal team to blame if his volunteered comments to the ABC's Four Corners program are ultimately used to convict him. Some civil libertarians are reported as being appalled that Four Corners aired the interview. I am appalled that anyone believes the ABC should sit on new information that is germane to a curreent criminal trial until after the outcome is set in stone (beyond further appeal). The ABC should have immediately brought Thomas' comments to the attention of the authorities. Such action may have averted the subsequent appeal against the admissability of certain evidence and the impending re-trial.
The conclusion that Four Corner's actions will dicourage whistle blowers is hard to sustain. Thomas' on-air confessions cannot be characterised as an expose on the conduct of the Austalian Federal Police. The legitimacy of some AFP evidence was successfully appealed and resulted in the original conviction being overturned. The latter outcome confirmed the integrity of our judicial system in insisting that evidence was inadmissible even if there was a slight risk of it having being gathered by coersion. The extensive reporting of the initial trial and the subsequent appeal confirmed the freedom rightly afforded to the press in Australia.
If al-Qa'ida had its way civil liberties would be non existant. I have every confidance that Mr Thomas will continue to enjoy the full protection of our robust judicial system and our free press. If ultimately found guilty Mr Thomas will deserve a stiff penalty. Any penalty needs to be harsh enough to discourage anyone dedicated to the abolition of our liberties by violent means. Unfortunately the stiffest of penalties will be ineffective against those so self indulgent that they are willing to be suicide bombers.

Whilst I agree with much of what you say Logical, I don't think your dismissal of suicide bombers as 'self-indulgent'is appropriate, any more than some claims (mainly by the Israeli Government) that they are 'cowards'.
It could easily be argued that people have the stongest belief that their actions are right if they are prepared to willingly kill themselves for their 'cause'.
Some of us westerners feel comfortable in dismissing those actions as a result of psychological control but we are quick to applaude our own war heroes who willingly sacrifice their lives in the name of God and country.

Freeranger's response has opened up an area of debate that is unrelated to my original theme.
My description of suicide bombers as being self indulgent is however a proposition that I am willing to forcefully defend.
Being a suicide bomber is self indulgent because the participant expects to be better off after his/her demise than before i.e. heaven with accoutrements is better than life on earth. The cost of pursuing your cause is not oblivion but a guaranteed first-class afterlife. To expect totally innocent civilian bystanders to be a necessary component of your entry price is self indulgence in spades.
The counter argument that not all civilian bystanders are innocent does not wash. Some civilians may be guilty of directly or indirectly supporting the actions of governments or alternate religions that the suicide bomber rails against. Some however does not equate with all. I doubt that even the majority of the Austalians killed in the Bali bombing could be characterised as remotely threatening the bombers pursuit of his/her religion.
The suicide bomber does not feel unease about the fate of genuinely innocent bystanders. Even existing adherents to his/her religion are considered acceptable collateral damage because they will be judged by God and accorded an appropriate afterlife. Bad luck about such innocents' surviving loved ones or that the victim may have intended to continue leading his her previously "pure" life.
The suicide bombers sole intent is to frighten adherents of all competing philosophies into adhering to his/her version of the truth. In my opinion such arrogance is repugnant and cannot be justified on the basis of any stocktake of the sins ( past/present, real/imagined) of your competitors in the world of ideas

Freeranger says "It could easily be argued that people have the strongest belief that their actions are right if they are prepared and willing to kill themselves for their 'cause'". Death can only be invoked as evidence of commitment to a cause when "total" death actually occurs. The suicide bomber does not equate the physical destruction of their body with their death. The exercise is one of being rewarded by moving to a higher place. Only when you regard death as "total" i.e. no afterlife can you support the proposition that being willing to die is unequivocal evidence of commitment to the cause.Lack of evidence of commitment is of course not proof of a lack of commitment.The difficulty with suicide bombers is in determining whether defence of their religion or the prospect of reward in the afterlife is the dominating influence.
As a committed civil libertarian I object to any movement that requires the sacrifice of individuals who follow a different star and are willing to let you follow yours.
Tolerance stops at the point of being obliged to accept intolerance as becoming integral to your own behaviour.
Freeranger expresses concern that "Some of us westerners feel comfortable with dismissing those actions (suicide bombing) as a result of psychological control but we are quick to applaud our own war heroes who willingly sacrifice their lives in the name of God and country". The above arguments indicate why I would regard brain-washing as a polite out for the irrational, unacceptable,outrageous and unjustifiable behaviour of all suicide bombers.
Freeranger is confused if he believes most dead war heroes set out with the intent of dying or that they acted out of a religious conviction, with or without, a belief in an afterlife. Our war heroes have no doubt been duped on occassion and acted with legitimate moral force on other occasions. The Geneva Convention has guided the terms of engagement that are taught to our military. Suicide bombers often deliberately select non-combatant targets. They do not seek to minimise so called collateral damage.

Ok Logical, you say 'The Geneva Convention has guided the terms of engagement that are taught to our military. Suicide bombers often deliberately select non-combatant targets. They do not seek to minimise so called collateral damage.'
I hadn't noticed the US taking much notice of the Geneva Convention. And never forget that the US is still the only country in the world to have used nuclear weapons (AND deliberately against civilian populations)

Freeranger. Your resonse implies that I am being hypocritical in mentioning the Geneva convention without drawing attention to how numerous states, including the USA, have broken the convention. My posting did not excuse or condone any nation breaking the Geneva convention.
The notion that differences can only be settled by killing your opposition and creating fear to cower the general populace into submission is abhorrent to me. Far better to avoid wars than invent rules to make them more "civilised". Nevertheless an intent to abide by those rules of engagement is, from the point of view of the civilian population, better than nothing. Drawing attention to the fundamental difference berween intending to abide by rules of engagement and throwing those rules to the wind is not an exercise in hypocricy.
My argument remains consistant because I abhore collateral damage and explicitely oppose the prime targetting of civilians by both sides. To remain consistant you need to apply your disdain for US actions that have impinged on civilians to the actions of suicide bombers who regard it as acceptable to select purely civilian targets, market places, commuter trains etc.
You have failed to address yourself to the body of my argument about why it is reasonable to descibe suicide bombers, who are offered the prospect of heaven for their grisly work, as being self indulgent.
Please state explicitely whether or not you hold the actions of such suicide bombers to be justifiable. My answer is an unequivocal NO. Nor do I seek to justify or downplay their murderous deeds by alluding to the errors of their opponents.

In the end it doesnt really matter why suicide bombers do it or why America does things. What matters is if we are going to be attacked in our own country by enemies from within then we should make sure we keep groups who contain such enemies out

Logical,

Returning to the original topic.

As a committed civil libertarian, what do you think of the concept of double jeopardy?

If Jack Thomas has been tried for a crime, and his conviction has been overturned on appeal because the evidence against him was tainted by a confession obtained under torture (i.e. his rights have been violated), doesn’t he now have a right to expect that he not be tried again? Think about this in terms of any normal person, rather than Jihad Jack who has already been found guilty by the court of public opinion – the media.

I would imagine, and I’m not 100% sure on this, that the principle of double jeopardy exists in law to protect people from being hounded for the rest of their lives for something a court of law has already found them not guilty of. It is designed to prevent a witch-hunt by the state, basically, and to ensure that the state does everything it can to make its case the first time because there is no second chance. From an individual’s perspective, the right not to be tried again would be considered a basic civil liberty.

The burden of proof is on the prosecution and they are supposed to obtain their evidence by only “fair” means, again to prevent an overly enthusiastic state from fabricating evidence against someone. In this instance, they did not use fair means. They knew of his torture, participated in it, denied him access to a lawyer before questioning, and then used the evidence they gained from it against him. They knew the rules by which they must abide, and disregarded them – they violated Jack Thomas’s rights. They were the ones who tainted their own case, and their tainted evidence was thrown out with the conviction based on it.

...cont...

Why, after having his rights violated by the State, does that same State have the right to try him again for the same crime?

Again, think about this as a principle of law. Remember, Jack Thomas is an innocent man because he has not been proven guilty of anything. He has had his day in court, with the biggest ammunition of the state thrown at him, and he is still not guilty.

One day it might not be Jack Thomas on trail, it might be you.

The concept of double jeopardy is an important one and I agree it is an important protection against the State waging a vendetta against an accused. However I am not convinced that the principle has been infringed in the Thomas case. I am not a lawyer and can only say what I perceive to be fair for both the accused and the community in this instance.
Hopefully some well trained lawyers will join this discussion to tell us what they believe the correct interpretation of the law on double jeopardy is in this case. They may seperately express an opinion about whether the current law on double jeopardy is in their opinion fair to Mr thomas and/or the community.
I feel sure that Mr Thomas' lawyers will pursue the double jeopardy angle if indeed it applies to his current circumstance. I would however be surprised if the Court of Appeal had failed to consider the question of double jeopardy when ruling that the DPP would be entitled to again put the entire issue before a fresh jury.
My understanding is that the Four Corners interview was freely entered into prior to the Court of Appeal deciding to overturn Thomas's conviction (by a jury) on the basis that certain evidence, deemed admissable by the trial judge, was inadmissable.
The new evidence therefore came to hand before the matter was definitively decided. If a definitive decision has not been reached then it is hard to call the consideration of fresh evidence double jeopardy. The matter remains open to determination and new information may be deemed admissable. Had Thomas' lawyers stopped him from making potentially self-incriminating statements until a later date he may have been protected by double jeopardy provisions.

The late arrival of germane information, before a matter is definitively determined, may well justify a trial adjournment to allow a defendant or prosecutor time to prepare their side. Remember that late information can help to exonerate, it does not necessarily help to convict.In this particular case the late evidence could not be considered by the original jury because it had already deliberated and convicted on unsound grounds. It does not strike me as being a vendetta for a fresh jury to be allowed to consider what Mr Thomas put into the public domain before he was convicted or exonerated.
I believe there are moves to re-write some of the laws about double jeopardy to take account of new technologies that would have assured a conviction had they been available at the time of the original trial.
The circumstances for such re-trying of a case would need to be most unusual and involve extreme offences. To deny that it may be approprite to do so in certain cases strikes me as unwise. You may feel that you can never put enough safeguards in place to avoid the State victimising an innocent party. I think it is possible and I am happy that our long tradition of giving the defendant the benefit of the doubt will continue to be our guiding principle.

Logical,

But the additional evidence didn’t come to the hand of the prosecution.

They prosecuted the matter on the evidence they had to hand, probably under extreme political pressure, and the evidence was not good enough. They were gung ho enough to prosecute the matter on insufficient evidence, possibly believing that the frenzy that had been whipped up surrounding the case would be enough to convict him. As it was, I think on two of the original charges he was found not guilty, and on the rest he was found guilty on the basis of admissions made under torture.

Had they not tortured him, they may never have gotten the admission, or they may have. If they hadn’t tortured him they may never have had enough evidence to go to trial. They tortured him – they got themselves in this position.

If indeed he was ever “guilty” of what they accuse him of, they buggered it up. They can’t go back now and say - give us another go, we’ll get it right this time, trust us – and by the way, sorry we tortured you last time. Or they ought not to be able to.

And, while I understand what you are saying about additional evidence exonerating someone, it is a little different allowing a prosecution to bring extra evidence after they have made their case which the jury does not get to decide on. The whole idea of a jury is to be judged by your peers on the evidence available. An appeal judge making a decision, essentially to convict someone, on a piece of evidence not seen by the jury (because they have decided that all other evidence is inadmissible and the jury conviction is unsound) amounts to a judicial decision (i.e. state decision) rather than a jury decision. We might as well be in Indonesia where they can arbitrarily increase a sentence on appeal.

And by the way, are they going to prosecute the people who tortured him, or allowed him to be tortured? I seriously doubt it.

Tao, The Court of Appeal has not convicted Thomas. They have simply said that the Four Corners interview is admissable material and that the DPP is entitled to put it to a new jury if he/she so wishes. If a re-trial is held it will still be a verdict arrived at by a Jury. The original evidence that was deemed inadmissable will not be put to the new jury.
It is worth noting that the appeal judges who over-rode the decision of the trial judge to admit certain evidence also, in a seperate and later hearing, determined the admissibility of the Four Corners material. Given that the appeal judges were willing to rule in Thomas' favour on the first occasion it is hard to claim that they were inherantly biased against him when the second matter was put to them at a later date.
Your assertion that someone under the control of the Australian government was responsible for torturing Thomas is quite unfair on the Australian Federal Police officers involved in this case. AFP officers also have civil rights. If there is evidence to support an allegation of them torturing someone then I would expect them to be charged. To my knowledge no charges have been laid against AFP officers involved in this case.
You may run the line that AFP officers have not been charged because the judiciary is under the thumb of the government. In my view there is no evidence of such collusion between the goverment and the judiciary in Austalia but that will not stop conspiracy theories.
I do not know the full details of why the appeal judges over-rode the trial judge about the admissability of certain evidence. One would need to read their entire appeal judgement. The appeal judges may have ruled material inadmissable because of a lack of legal representation at the time rather than because there was evidence of mental or physical abuse by AFP officers. Even the possibility of abuse e.g no video recording of an interview, may sway the judges to rule in favour of an accused.