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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Australian True Crime with Michelle Laurie.
Chapter 2: What kind of person defends a murderer?
Have you ever wondered what kind of person could defend a murderer? Have you ever wondered what kind of person does autopsies for a living?
Chapter 3: What does a forensic pathologist do?
Well, you're about to meet one of each. Our guests today are Joanna Glengarry, Head of Forensic Pathology Services at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine, and Timothy Marsh, a senior criminal lawyer who has spent his career working on some of Victoria's most serious cases.
Their work sits at different points within the justice system, but regularly intersects in courtrooms and investigations where medical evidence and legal argument have to be interpreted together under intense scrutiny.
Chapter 4: How do forensic pathologists and defense lawyers collaborate?
Together, they explore what it means to work in that space and how two very different professions are brought together by the same question at the centre of so many cases.
Chapter 5: What myths exist about forensic pathology?
What actually happened? This is Australian True Crime. We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast is created, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. And a warning, this episode of the podcast contains graphic descriptions of violence.
I suppose the thing that would be more surprising to listeners is there's more that brings us together than drives us apart in this sense.
Chapter 6: How do forensic pathologists interpret death scenes?
And I think one of the things that both Joe and I are very animated about is trying to dispel the myths around the nature of what we do. CSI has obviously done a lot to create an entire mythology around forensic pathology, and you needn't look very far to find... umpteen examples of the law being portrayed in ways that are probably pretty inaccurate.
Certainly, culture would have it that you guys would be combative. You would have a combative relationship because, Tim, in terms of TV and movies and books and all that, it's your job to break her down, to get Joanna on the stand. If she wants to say something about the circumstances of someone's death, you as a defence lawyer need to destroy her evidence.
I mean, fortunately, that's not the case.
Chapter 7: What role does context play in criminal defense?
And I think that's not the case for a couple of reasons. One of them is that the quality and the independence of forensic pathologists in Victoria is unparalleled. So you're not going to be cross-examining to discredit somebody.
So at no stage are you going to be suggesting that this person doesn't know what they're doing, that they're incompetent, that they're biased, that they're in the pocket of the party who's commissioned them.
Chapter 8: How do defense lawyers prepare for trials involving forensic evidence?
So I think probably the first thing to point out is that forensic pathologists are there to assist the court. They don't appear on behalf of either party.
For the majority of cases, there are things to discuss. It isn't black and white from a pathology point of view. When we go to the scene, it has multiple roles. So it is putting the death in context, but not in terms of... who the police are looking for in relation to who might have been involved in that death, that's a complete aside. It's the scene and how it relates to the deceased person.
So are there factors at the scene that are going to alter how the body appears, how the injuries might appear? Is there a specific object? Is the person up against a bar heater? And that explains why they've got multiple parallel red lines on the body, that that's actually an artifact from the heater, not because someone's hit them with an unusual weapon with that pattern on.
So that can be really important in interpreting it. And in many other cases, it's actually going to other scenes where the death is thought to be suspicious and it turns out not to be. And we can interpret those post-mortem artifacts that might look really concerning to a lay person, but we can say, no, that's not a pool of blood. It's related to processes that occur after death.
So we don't go in order to figure out whodunit like the clever TV pathologists do.
No, you don't even have guns or leather jackets, which I've always found very exciting.
And I don't arrive before the police. No. That would be odd, and I should probably spend my time better.
Yes, absolutely. And where does it fit in a trial, Tim? You've said that you normally start your prep, your work, with looking at the report from the pathologist. Where do you usually get to speak to them in the context of a trial? Are they early witnesses?
Well, the first thing I'll say is certainly in most murders, you'll have an opportunity to cross-examine key witnesses at a preliminary hearing. And it's very common.
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