R V. Pora (2015 UKPC)
Definition
Judicial Committee of the Privy Council decision quashing Teina Pora's New Zealand murder conviction based on neuropsychological evidence that FASD-related frontal-lobe impairment made his false confession neurologically explicable.
- Court
- Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
- Year
- 2015
- Jurisdiction
- New Zealand
- Key evidence
- Neuropsychological / FASD evidence
Common questions
Why was neuropsychological evidence central to overturning Pora's conviction?+
Expert evidence showed his fetal alcohol spectrum disorder caused frontal-lobe impairment that made him unusually suggestible and prone to confabulation, giving a scientific explanation for a detailed false confession the original jury had no way to evaluate.
What broader legal point does the Pora case illustrate?+
It shows appellate courts increasingly accepting neuroscientific evidence to explain the reliability of a confession itself, not just to argue diminished culpability, reshaping how false-confession claims can be litigated on appeal.
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