Joseph Karam, the well known author and supporter of the recently acquitted David Bain, has written two books and a booklet about the Bain Case during his campaign for Justice and has earnt money from them and other sources. An analysis of these publications reveals a strong belief in his own prejudices, rather than the evidence and a strong tendency to obfuscate the facts by magnifying tiny and irrelevant details so that many key elements do not get the time they deserve and are therefore ignored. He describes himself as an author, yet whenever his motives or methods, revealed in the contents of his books, are questioned, he sues for defamation, instead of engaging in rational discussion or counter argument. This appears to be a rather brutal form of intellectual discourse.

The following are excerpts are taken from David & Goliath, by Joe Karam (1997) Reed

Excerpts from Bain and Beyond by Joe Karam (2000) Reed

The point of greatest note from David and Goliath is the admission from the author that he considers that basing judgment on feelings or emotions is superior to basing judgment on evidence. From page 137:

“I feel a great pity for the jurors who sat to pronounce verdict on David Bain. I am sure that they were perplexed as to why this perfectly normal young man committed this atrocity. They had to base their judgment on the evidence presented to them, not their feelings or emotions. And the evidence was palpably false and misleading.”

It is clear from this sentence that feelings and emotions take primary place in the author's judgment processes.  The second quote from page 20 further indicates the authors high regard for his own judge of character and how his first meeting with the “guileless” David Bain forged his belief in his innocence. There is no mention of evidence playing a part in the author's first encounter with the Bain Case. On page 203 the author makes an assumption about a point of evidence, which again reveals his tendency to refer in the first place to his belief that David Bain is innocent. In this passage, because of his belief he asserts that a piece of evidence will, if tested, have a particular result. The result was tested many years later and had quite the opposite result to that which the author expected (Booker, 2009). This point is further supported by the quotation made by Karam: “It's hard to say this without sounding arrogant but I know that I'm right” (Cumming, 2007). This is a statement made without reference to forensic evidence but to the author's own personal convictions on the Bain Case.

Monetary Advantage

The author made a firm contractual agreement to be eligible for half of the proceeds of any books, magazine articles and the like that might someday stem from the Bain Case (p20 of David and Goliath). This is further strengthened by his taking power of attorney over David Bain (p94 of David and Goliath).

1. During the course of the campaign, the author sold in the region of 30,000 copies of each of the two books and was planning a third. An author can expect to derive up to 10% in royalties from sales of a book. If the books retailed for $30, then the author could have earnt up to $180,000 from sales of both books. One of the books was reprinted in 2007 without corrections and sales from that reprint are not included in this estimate.

2. The author has no formal qualifications in law or anything related to justice and unlike the police, lawyers, psychologists and journalists is not required to adhere to any professional ethics or attend any training courses, yet he was able to earn $75-$95 per hour through legal aid while working as a representative for David Bain.  Receipts from legal aid as of 4 March 2010 for Joseph Karam are as follows:

   1. For the David Bain Appeal to the Privy Council

      Fees	$28,440.00
      Disbursements	$24,080.52
      Total	$52,520.52

   2. For the David Bain Retrial 2007 to 2009 (final invoice yet to arrive)

      Fees	$272,823.75
      Disbursements	$93,055.30
      Total	$365,879.05

With regards to money and the Bain case, the author made this comment to Salient Magazine when asked if he would pariticpate in an interview with David: “Why should we give you that information when, after Bain is acquitted, we could charge for interviews?” (Nicoll, 2007).  This paid interview did eventually happen in 2009 (Page, 2009).

Sub Judice

Another facet uncovered in the Salient Magazine article is that the author's book David and Goliath was reprinted in 2007, despite the Solicitor General's directive that no public discussion on the case was to be entered into until the completion of the trial.

Obfuscation

In his works, Joseph Karam makes much of several items of evidence

1. The location of the glasses lense in Stephen Bain's room

2. The turn on time of the computer and the time that David Bain was seen entering the property

3. The sock prints in the hallway

4. The fact that the bloody fingerprints on the gun were in the reverse position and not a firing position

The exact location of the glasses lense was a much disputed item of evidence, however, there was no dispute that it was found in Stephen's room. While the position of the lense may have added weight to different scenarios, the fact that it was found in the room still carried the same general meaning for the Crown case. The author's persistent attention to the placement of the lense in Stephen's room and his attempts to engineer maximum recriminations against the police for alleged misconduct created a cloud of uncertainty over the safety of the original conviction and this was the subject of one of the 2007 Privy Council rulings that led to the retrial. However in the retrial the possibility arose that the detective was right all along (Van Beynen, 2009).

The computer turn on time and the witness testimony of the time that David Bain was alleged to have entered the property both come with rather large margins of error. In 1994 computers were not synchronized via internet time systems and were dependent on user input. In addition a policeman's watch also became involved in the recording of the startup time giving the correct measurement of this time a margin of error of several minutes. The testimony of the witness who saw David Bain entering the property which was taken from a car clock, carries a similar level of user input error as well as a memory recall error. Between these two testified times, the margins of error would have overlapped sufficiently to make it indeterminable whether or not David Bain had arrived in time to turn on the computer. This would make this piece of evidence unsafe to use by both the Prosecution and the Defense. On the basis of these margins of error there is no foundation to the claim of absoluteness about chronology as attested by the author in David & Goliath, p137. Two of the Privy Council rulings related to this issue.

The origin of the sock prints were, probably quite rightly, contested and various experts called in and experiments done. The best conclusion from this dispute, as with the computer turn on time, is that this item of evidence is also unsafe to use.

The fingerprints on the gun may have been put there during or after the struggle with Stephen Bain when the murderer could have found it necessary to pick the rifle up from that position and then forgotten to wipe down that part of the rifle later.

The first three of these four items of evidence were given considerable amounts of attention by the author in attempts to implicate the police in acts of perjury and suppression of evidence.  The desired effect was to cast a cloud of doubt and impropriety over police conduct that would be sufficient to "destroy" the entire case and all other evidence against David Bain.  The author was able to create enough publicity about this alleged impropriety and in promoting his own conclusions about the case that he was able to influence at least one major media personality into accepting his position (Parker, 2010).

This focus on a small number of items of evidence served to draw attention away from the many other items of evidence remaining that are indicative of David Bain's guilt, as revealed in the original trial:

• David Bain's strange behaviour before and after the murders

• David Bain's previous history of being isolated and alienated at school which are common traits of at-risk youth

• David Bain's changes of testimony

• His mother’s glasses were found broken in his room, and the lens in Stephen’s room, and it is known he sometimes used them, consistent with David being the person who fought with Stephen.

• The injuries on David Bain's face

• David Bain's strength and fitness made him more likely to have been able to overpower Stephen than his father

• The gun belonged to him and was kept in his room

• The spare key lock was in his room and supposedly unknown to anyone else

• The bloodied gloves belonged to him

• David Bain was not able to explain the 20 minute delay between finding his father’s body and ringing 111 which is consistent with him coming home and waiting for his father to rise so he could then shoot him.

• David Bain had a shooting board with five targets

• The washing machine cycle had insufficient time to finish according to the accused's story

• An empty cartridge was lying on its edge by Robin Bain's hand and could only have got there by being placed

• Fingerprints consistent with David Bain's were found on the washing machine

• David Bain had blood on his clothes that belonged to Stephen, who was the only one who put up a fight and was likely to transfer blood

• Blood marks on the doorways were consistent with someone of David Bain's stature

• The suicide note was written in the past tense, as if written after the murders were completed

• A school teacher would write a more considered and prosaic suicide note than that found

• Robin Bain had only his own blood on his clothes and the only injuries on his person were on his hands, but he was known to have worked on the house gutters during the weekend.

• Robin Bain had dirt under his fingernails and was unwashed, yet there were blood stains in the shower that indicated the murderer had showered

• Robin Bain had a full bladder, which while possible, would be very unlikely if he was the murderer

• David spoke of hearing Laniet gurgling and then the Defence had to develop a story to explain it

New Evidence

As a result of his media campaign, which is covered in A Study in Spin and Propaganda (Parker, 2010), Karam was successful in convincing a sizeable proportion of the public into sharing his belief of David Bain's innocence and that is exemplified in a UMR poll of May 2007, the same month Bain's 1995 murder conviction was quashed at the Privy Council:

guilty 23%
not guilty 62%
unsure 15%

After the trial public opinion changed after the revelation of evidence suppressed in the retrial. The new evidence was as follows:

• witness testimony of a plan to commit an act using the paper run as an alibi
• witness testimony of the accused threatening members of the family with his gun

UMR poll 20th of June 2009, immediately following the retrial was as follows:

guilty 29%
not guilty 47%
unsure 24%

Treatment of Other People

In the course of his campaign Karam has waged a legal war against anyone criticizing his methods and motives. Following is a list of people and organizations that he has either sued for defamation or threatened:

1997, Woman's Day, Chris Cooke

1997, TVNZ “Karam is broke” article

2003, North and South, Rosemary Mcleod, Magnificent Obsession article

2003, Judith Wolfe and Trevor Reeves, defamation threat prior to publication of In the Grip of Evil The Bain murders

2010, TVNZ, defamation threat to prevent screening of Bryan Bruce A Question of Justice

2010, Sunday Star Times, defamation threat to prevent publication of advertisements for petition opposing compensation for David Bain.

The following citations are taken from David & Goliath, by Joe Karam (1997) Reed

The author did not show much consideration for the people that helped him with his cause once they had served their purpose, and is more than willing to expose their weaknesses and follies publicly. Eg his treatment of Michael Guest (p182 ). This seems rather brutal and unnecessary.

The Role of Forensic Evidence in Criminal Convictions

Excerpts from David and Goliath, Joe Karam (2000), Reed.

On p213 the author claims that his scenario regarding Robin is based strictly on what is known but there are huge tracts in his scenario that can only be considered highly speculative.  In suggesting that the police selected evidence to fit their theory he forgets that for several days after the Bain family murders, the police considered that they were looking at a murder/suicide and that it was only due to the nature of the evidence that they moved towards an arrest of David Bain which occurred four days later.

Excerpts from Bain and Beyond, Joe Karam (2000), Reed.

On Page 46 Karam argues for reasonable doubt and describes one of the purposes of writing David and Goliath was to find holes in the case against David Bain. Our Justice system relies on forensic science to help determine culpability in criminal cases. Science is never 100% without error so there will always be holes. In science, conclusions are usually made on the basis of “most likely” and then over the years, establish their credibility with the uncovering of further empirical evidence that supports them. Darwin's theory of genetic succession which underlies evolution was initially met with a lot of sceptism (and a forthright person such as Karam would have been able to poke it full of holes) but since then 150 years of paleontological, geological and biological discoveries have created a strong foundation of evidence to support it. All forensic evidence should be treated with a certain amount of sceptism or objectivity and the investigator should not allow themselves to be wrapped up emotionally in the meaning that they think the evidence imparts. Becoming emotionally involved in an investigation can lead to bad science: where the investigator chooses the conclusion he wishes to take and then goes back and attempts to make the evidence support that conclusion. In the Bain case there has been a lot of new evidence that continues to support the initial conviction, yet Karam has shown no signs of wavering from his initial belief, formed if we are to believe his words, during his meeting with the “guileless” David Bain.

Karam could well take heed from his own warnings of forming “a view and finding it almost impossible to alter that view” (p130). The same goes with convincing himself of “ patently illogical conclusions when” “burdened with a prejudiced viewpoint from the outset” (p140).  This is most clearly illustrated by a report that in 1997 Karam commissioned an armourer in the Victorian Police Department (Australia) to do forensic tests on aspects of the Bain case.  The resulting report cast doubts on the possibility that Robin Bain could have committed suicide.  Karam chose not to uplift the document or to attempt to understand its contents.  It is clear from a historical reading of Karam's work habits, that this conclusion did not fit his mindset, therefore he was not prepared to accept its existence.

Conclusion

Joseph Karam established a financial relationship right at the start of his campaign and earnt considerable amounts of money through sales of books and use of legal aid. A citation from David and Goliath clearly states a preference by the author for basing judicial outcomes on feelings and emotion rather than empirical evidence. Although Karam prides himself in being an “author”, he tackles opposition to his motives and methods, not through means normally associated with an author, such as writing counter arguments, but by issuing defamation suits. Overall, evidence suggests that Joseph Karam bases his judgments on personal feelings and seeks to close down any opposition by the most brutal means legally available in a Western Democracy.

Bibliography

Booker, Jarrod, NZ Herald, 2009: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10569974

Cumming, Geoff, NZ Herald, 2007: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/new-zealanders-of-the-year/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501017&objectid=10482433&pnum=2

Karam, Joseph, David and Goliath, 1997, Reed

Karam, Joseph, Bain and Beyond, 2000, Reed

Page, E, Dominion Post, 2009: http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-news/news/national-news/2565861/David-Bain...

Nicholl, S, Salient Magazine, 2007: http://www.salient.org.nz/features/the-bain-of-his-life-joe-karam

Parker, A Case Study in Spin and Propaganda, 2010: http://davidbain.counterspin.co.nz/a-case-study-in-spin-and-propaganda

Van Beynen, Martin, 2009, NZ Herald, 2009: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/2388409/Bain-trial-Evidence-right-...