Charlotte Graham McLay
Wellington, New Zealand: In a nearly empty courtroom, in front of almost no one, the appeal of New Zealand’s most vilified killer was heard quietly and with barely any mention of the details of the country’s deadliest mass shooting.
Such is New Zealand’s desire to quell the racist motivations of Brenton Tarrant, who murdered 51 Muslims praying in two mosques in the city of Christchurch in 2019.
Tarrant, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, referenced other perpetrators of hate-fueled massacres when he committed his attack, and other mass shooters have since cited his actions. However, it is rare to find the Australian’s words in New Zealand, the country to which he emigrated with a plan to accumulate semi-automatic weapons and carry out the massacre.
Authorities have tried to curb the spread of his views, including by legally banning his racist manifesto and a live-streamed video of the shooting. The effort to avoid public exposure for Tarrant is perhaps most evident in the New Zealand courts, where this week he attempted to retract his guilty pleas.
A three-judge panel at the Wellington Court of Appeal heard closing arguments Friday from Crown lawyers opposing Tarrant’s request to have his 2020 confessions to charges of terrorism, murder and attempted murder thrown out.
Tarrant is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole, but the case would return to court for a full trial if he is allowed to overturn his guilty pleas. Opposition lawyers say his appeal is baseless.
The 35-year-old told the court this week he did not want to plead guilty and made “irrational” confessions during a “nervous breakdown” induced by lonely and austere prison conditions. But Crown lawyers opposing his appeal said in their response Friday that there was no evidence for claims that he suffered from a serious mental illness.
Experts had ruled that Tarrant was fit to plead guilty, and his former lawyers and prison staff also raised no concerns.
“It is difficult to see what more could have been done,” Crown attorney Barnaby Hawes told the court. Tarrant, he added, “is an unreliable witness and his account should be treated with caution.”
The evidence against Tarrant – including his own livestream of the massacre, in which he filmed his face – was so overwhelming that a guilty verdict would be assured had he fought the charges at trial, lawyers said.
“Pleading guilty to charges where your guilt is certain cannot be considered unreasonable,” Hawes said.
The quiet hearing challenges the tension over the case.
One topic almost absent from the weeklong hearing was any mention of the hateful motivations Tarrant cited for committing the crimes. Lawyers supporting and opposing Tarrant’s candidacy avoided reference to his white supremacist views, and the proceedings unfolded in the quiet, impassive manner that New Zealand court cases typically do.
“Keeping this case alive is a source of immense anguish” for the shooter’s victims.
Crown attorney Madeleine Laracy
But there were signs the court was seeking to limit public exposure to Tarrant, as New Zealand’s justice system has done before. Almost no one was allowed to see the gunman’s evidence and the appeal played out in front of nine reporters, nine lawyers, some court staff and an empty public gallery.
Tarrant was allowed to watch the proceedings via video link from Auckland Prison, but his image was not visible in the courtroom except when he testified.
Except in Christchurch, where grieving and wounded survivors watched a live broadcast of the local court hearing, the shooter was invisible.
The approach New Zealand has taken – in which even the media names the shooter as few times as possible in each article – contrasts with the publicity previously given to trials of racist mass murderers, including the widely covered proceedings of Norwegian murderer Anders Breivik, whom Tarrant cited years later as an inspiration.
Crown lawyers on Friday urged appeal judges to thwart the prospect of the matter returning to court in a lengthy public trial, which would happen if the Australian’s attempt to recant his guilt were successful.
“Keeping this case alive is a source of immense anguish” for the shooter’s victims, said Crown attorney Madeleine Laracy. “It doesn’t allow them to heal.”
A quick decision is not expected. The judges’ decision will be announced later. New Zealand’s appeals court delivers 90 percent of its sentences within three months of the end of the hearing, according to the court’s website.
If his attempt to overturn his guilty pleas is unsuccessful, Tarrant’s case will return to the appeals court for a later hearing, where he will seek a review of his life sentence.
AP
