You were broadcasting your view that the decision is unappealable a short time after the judgement was released*. Looking over the list of High Court decisions this year, it has reviewed a criminal case every couple of months. In some cases the accused person appealed, in others the Crown. You are wrong to say it NEVER happens. The Court of Appeal took over three months to produce their Baden-Clay decision. You spent how many minutes or hours to ascertain the perfection of their work? If you have all the issues at your fingertips, pray share them. Why is the decision unappealable?
*Post #332, 17 hours ago
With respect, I think you are misinterpreting my post to a degree.
Yes, criminal appeals are commonly heard in the HCA. More often than not the applicant is the accused, but Crown initiated appeals are also reasonably common.
The Crown has no right of appeal if a jury has acquitted a defendant, however there is an avenue of appeal (very rarely exercised) if a conviction is overturned by an appellate court, as is the case here
Having said that, the vast majority of Crown appeals deal with the inadequacy of sentence as opposed to questions of law and so on. I've gone back 10 years and have found only 4 instances where the HCA granted leave on a Crown appeal on a matter of law (in relation to appellate court acquittal).
Further to that, to the best of my knowledge, there has NEVER been an occasion where special leave has been granted where a verdict was overturned (or downgraded in this particular case) on the basis of an appellate court ruling that the verdict was unreasonable given the evidence.
On top of this is the further complication that the QCA did not acquit Gerard, the charge was only amended to the lesser charge of manslaughter. I will freely admit to not knowing if the Crown even has a statutory right to appeal in this scenario as it wasn't an outright acquittal. This is a rare case and I'd have to do some research before knowing if this is even a legal option to the A-G.
Nevertheless, in 10 years there have been only 4 case where the HCA has overruled an appellate court ruling of acquittal and all have related to very complex questions of law and/or infrequently used or new statute (slavery and terrorism being responsible for 2 of these appeals). And as I said earlier, I'm not aware of there ever being a case where the HCA has overruled an appellate court's judgement in regards to an unsafe or unsatisfactory verdict.
So leave to appeal being allowed would be totally unprecedented in Australia legal history (again, to the best of my knowledge) and it's inconceivable to think that this would be the case given that the judgement was in line with the opinion of most legal academics.
I guess it's like saying that man will land on Mars next month. In absolute terms I cannot completely refute this but the chances are so astronomically remote as to render the argument moot.