Queensland's 'no body, no parole' law tested in the High Court

ABC NEWS (Australia)

'No-body, no- parole' laws are constitutionally water-tight and are here to stay. That's been made clear after a Queensland man convicted of killing his wife and stepdaughter failed to convince the High Court to strike out laws that were used to deny him parole, because he refused to cooperate with authorities trying to find their bodies. The High Court rejected the argument that the "no-body, no-parole" laws increased the prison sentence handed to Rodney Michael Cherry.

Transcript

00:00Well, Mr Cherry back in 2002 was found guilty of two murders, the 1997 murder of his wife

00:10Annette and the later 1999 murder of his stepdaughter Keira and Keira's remains were never found.

00:19So Cherry was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences for murder and under Queensland

00:27law, that means that you have to stay in jail for a minimum of 20 years non-parole.

00:33And after that period expired, he thought, well, I can start applying for parole.

00:38But the Queensland Parole Board said, no, we're not giving you parole because we have no body,

00:44no parole laws and you did not cooperate in helping to locate Keira's remains.

00:49So no parole.

00:51And at that point, Cherry decided to challenge these laws in the High Court.

00:56And take us through the basis of Cherry's ultimately unsuccessful appeal to the High Court.

01:03So Cherry's argument was that in our constitution, we have a separation of powers doctrine.

01:10That means that only a court, only a judge can impose a prison sentence or extend a prison

01:16sentence.

01:18And his argument was that the Parole Board was stepping into that space and effectively extending

01:25his prison sentence or extending or increasing his punishment.

01:30But the High Court said, no, that's not what's taking place here.

01:33You received, Mr Cherry, a life sentence.

01:38And what the Parole Board is deciding here is your eligibility for the privilege of parole,

01:45of serving some of your life sentence back in the community.

01:48So therefore, these laws are constitutionally watertight.

01:55And how many states and territories have these no body, no parole laws?

02:01They started coming in about 10 years ago, and they're now in six states and territories.

02:09And in almost every jurisdiction, there has been a victim's family who have been the catalyst

02:15and the drivers for this kind of law.

02:18They've been very distressed by the lack of cooperation to recover the remains of their

02:24loved one.

02:25So that's, yeah, six jurisdictions.

02:27So what does it take for a Parole Board to be satisfied that a prisoner has sufficiently

02:33cooperated in the location of a body?

02:36Yeah.

02:37So, yes, Parole Boards do sometimes say, yeah, look, OK, we have no body, but we're satisfied

02:43that you've done your best.

02:44There have been some really interesting cases in Queensland.

02:47There was one case where a killer dumped or put the body and the murder weapon into a

02:56crocodile-infested river.

02:59And the murder weapon was recovered from the river.

03:03And so the Parole Board accepted that, yeah, probably he did put the body in the crocodile-infested

03:09river and that's why there are no remains.

03:11And we're satisfied that that amounts to honest and sufficient cooperation.

03:16There have been other cases where, a very disturbing case, where a body was placed in a wheelie bin

03:22and then that was subsequently emptied into landfill and the body was never recovered.

03:27But the Parole Board looked at all the circumstances and thought the killer had been telling the truth.

03:32There have been other cases where bodies have been totally incinerated and that's been accepted.

03:37There have been a lot of cases or a number of cases involving a body being buried in bushland.

03:44And then the killer saying, oh, I can't quite locate the exact place where I buried the body.

03:54And then the Parole Boards have decided in either direction, depending on the circumstances,

04:00as to whether they believe the killer is telling the truth.

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