Homicide Law Reform in Victoria Retrospect and Prospects

2015 marks a decade since the release of the Victorian Law Reform Commission's Defences to Homicide: Final Report. The Commission's Final Report recommended major changes to the law of homicide in Victoria and in 2005, the Victorian government responded to the 56 recommendations by implementing the largest package of homicide law reforms since the abolition of the death penalty. This book brings together leading scholars, legal practitioners and the former Victorian Attorney-General to provide a comprehensive examination of the Victorian experience of reform, including its perceived successes and failures. This is a controversial area of the law that continues to present challenges in practice. Since the 2005 reforms further reform of the law has occurred in Victoria and a range of divergent approaches to homicide law reform have been introduced and animated debate across Australia and internationally. With such a high level of law reform activity nationally this book provides a timely analysis of the extent to which the Victorian reforms have improved legal responses to lethal violence and with what effect in practice. To enhance this analysis the book also looks internationally to consider the operation of homicide law in England and Wales, Canada and New Zealand and what lessons could be gained from an Australian perspective from differing approaches to reform. This book explores a number of issues concerning the operation of the law of homicide, sentencing practices, the role of the media, evidence reforms, legal culture, political influences and future reform challenges for Victoria and other Australian jurisdictions. In examining all aspects of the 2005 homicide law reforms, the book draws on the views of those who were involved in reviewing the law of homicide in Victoria, those who recommended and implemented reform, and those who have played a key role in the monitoring and evaluation of the law post-reform in Victoria but also more widely in Australia and internationally. The resulting analysis will be of great interest to law, criminology and socio-legal scholars as well as legal practitioners and law reformers in Australia and comparative international jurisdictions.

Introduction: Homicide law reform in Victoria: Retrospect and Prospects 1. The More Things Change the More They Stay the Same — Homicide Law Reform in Victoria 2. Legal Culture, Professional Education and Homicide Law Reform3. Law Reform and the Media: (Re)figuring Responsibility 4. Homicide Law Reform, Provocation and Sentencing 5. The Effects of the 2005 Reforms on Legal Responses to Women Who Kill Intimate Partners 6. Social Framework Evidence: Its Interpretation and Application in Victoria and Beyond 7. When Self Defence Fails 8. The Offence of Defensive Homicide: Lessons Learned from Failed Law Reform 9. Simplifying Homicide Laws for Complex Situations 10. Reform and Codification of the Law of Homicide: Reflections on the Victorian Experience

Arie Freiberg AM is an Emeritus Professor at Monash University and Chair of the Victorian and Tasmanian Sentencing Advisory Councils. Dr Kate Fitz-Gibbon is a Lecturer in Criminology in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University.