The matter examined the behaviour of the judge and lawyers in the trial of Yolngu man Dhakiyarr (Tuckiar) Wirrpanda in the Northern Territory Supreme Court a year earlier for one of the Caledon Bay murders, and overturned the judgment which had found the appellant guilty and sentenced him to death.

It has become a case study in, and raises many issues for, legal ethics regarding instructions by judges and the behaviour of defence counsel, as well as the treatment of Indigenous people before the Australian justice system.

Dhakiyarr Wirrpanda, a Yolngu Aboriginal man living a traditional life,[1] was sentenced to death in the Northern Territory Supreme Court for the murder by spearing of a police constable, Albert McColl, on Woodah Island, an island off Arnhem Land on the northern coast of Australia.

McColl had gone to Arnhem Land with a police party to apprehend some Aboriginal people thought to have killed the crew of a Japanese pearling lugger.

[3] The case was heard over two days, 29–30 October 1934, in Melbourne[2] after some protest and lobbying by people including the Anglican clergyman A. P.