John Munro: Criminal defence lawyer says it's very rare to see public caught in the crossfire of a homicide

A criminal defence lawyer says it's very rare to see the public caught in the crossfire of a homicide.  

Since the start of August, Police have launched 11 homicide investigations around the country.  

One has since been deemed not a homicide and has been referred to the coroner.  

Lawyer John Munro told Ryan Bridge Police may be stretched. 

“The promising thing is that we have a very, very good Police force. They’re very well-equipped, they’re good Police, they’re competent.” 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's been eleven homicides in New Zealand in just over
a month, and people are freaking out a little bit,
at least some in the media are. I suppose. The
latest was on Saturday night, when a man was dropped
off at Kaitaire Hospital with serious injuries, later dying as
a result. The annual police homicide report released in June
says New Zealand averages seventy two deaths by homicide per year.

(00:20):
John Munroe is a criminal defense lawyer. He's with us
this morning. John, Good morning, Good morning man. Just a spike, random,
nothing to worry about.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
Well, it look it could be who knows that, it
does seem at the moment, especially to be reading the
media and seeing a lot of homicides taking place more
recently than normal. Who knows what is from. But a
good criminologist would say there's many, many reasons for spikes
and homicides.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
I guess you can't you look at a trend, right,
You have to look at a trend if you're looking
at policies and things around it. In the short term. Though,
for police having such a a large case load, did
they have the you know, are they probably resourced to
be able to look into all of those things.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, I'm sure they're stretched, but but I suppose the
promising thing is that we have a very very good
police force. They're very well equipped, they're good police, they're
they're they're competent, and certainly from from practicing in myself
in other areas of the of the world, New Zealand
would have to be rating among once one of the

(01:29):
better ones in the in the world. In the criminal
justice system as well.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Do you think people should be worried when they see
spikes like this? I mean, people inevitably do, but the
reality is you're you're most likely to be killed by
somebody that you that you know, right, it's not randoms
going out killing randoms.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
That's right, it's it's it's very raally some sort of
cross fire or machine gun fire, pet someone getting the
public getting hit in the street. It's very very rare
to see that sort of thing happen. So, you know,
generally speaking, like you say, the publica are still safe.

Speaker 1 (02:06):
You said you'd worked in the UK before. Do we
have like in terms of international comparisons, we do quite well.
Not that it's something you do well at obviously, but
we we have what I should say is we have
a relatively low homicide rate here.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
Don't we Yes, we do, We do compared to I've
worked in the UK, but I haven't worked in the US.
But if you look at the US's you know that's catastrophic.
And we have a really good system of justice as well.
So we have a good system of police catching people,
and we have a really good system of justice and
dealing with people as well. So I think overall, even

(02:40):
though I can't put a positive spin on it, at
least we have those good systems in place.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Thanks so much for that, John John Munroe, criminal defense lawyer.
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