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Stephen ‘Shorty’ Jamieson: A Case of Mistaken Identity and False Confession

ByDr Robert Cavanagh and Dr Neil Schultz

Summary

This open memorandum, prepared by Professor Helen Fraser of the University of Melbourne and Professor Michele Ruyters of RMIT University, calls for an independent inquiry into the 1990 conviction of Stephen “Shorty” Jamieson, who is serving a life sentence for the abduction, rape and murder of Janine Balding. The authors argue that developments in DNA testing and forensic linguistics now raise serious questions about both Jamieson’s identification as a perpetrator and the reliability of the confession used to convict him.

Jamieson has consistently maintained that he was the “wrong Shorty”. The memorandum notes that four people involved in the crime testified that Jamieson was not the man who had been with them, while DNA from the victim excluded him and no fingerprints or other forensic traces implicated him. Subsequent testing of a black bandana used during the crime has also excluded Jamieson while revealing DNA from an unidentified male. The authors argue that this DNA should be compared with that of another man, Mark “Shorty” Wells, who was alleged to have been present and was known to wear a black bandana.

Central to the memorandum is the confession attributed to Jamieson. His conviction depended chiefly on a police-typed “verbatim record of interview”, which detectives told the jury contained his exact words. The memorandum presents linguistic evidence and more recent experimental research suggesting that it would have been impossible to produce anything approaching a reliable verbatim transcript of a lengthy spoken interview in real time on a mechanical typewriter. It argues that this evidence fundamentally undermines the way the confession was presented to the jury.

The authors therefore ask the NSW Attorney-General to release relevant DNA results and records, facilitate further DNA comparison testing, and establish an independent inquiry into the reliability of the confession and Jamieson’s conviction. They conclude that, as Jamieson approaches four decades in prison, the accumulated evidence warrants urgent reconsideration of his case.

Take your time and read the document below. 

You can also endorse this open memorandum:
https://q.surveys.unimelb.edu.au/jfe/form/SV_4Zu6coCva0CRuTA

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