Dayney v The King [2024] HCA 22
A legislative code is to be construed ‘without any presumption that it was intended to do no more that restate the existing law’15. D was a meth addict. He killed V with a baseball bat after V produced a gun during a planned burglary at V’s place. D said that everything he did after the gun came out was to preserve his own life. D was convicted of murder.
The issue was how exceptions to self-defence in the Criminal Code (Q) are to be read. The court analysed the text in detail. It concluded (at [29]) that, if D engages in force that provokes V to retaliate with equal force, D should not get the benefit of self-defence without first retreating – appeal dismissed.
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Footnotes:
15 Namoa [2021] HCA 13 [11], Pickett [2020] HCA 20 [23-23], Episode 73.