Arts & Culture
I don’t think that word means what you think it means
A life sentence for a crime he may not have committed - and there could be more just like him
Stephen 'Shorty' Jamieson has been in jail since 1988 for a murder he denies committing. The only real evidence against him was a typed transcript. Researchers say his case may not be unique
Published 4 March 2026
In September 1988, Stephen ‘Shorty’ Jamieson, 22, was arrested for the brutal abduction, rape and murder of Janine Balding in New South Wales.
Two years later, Jamieson was sentenced to life in prison where he remains to this day, now nearing 60.
The main evidence against him was a detailed confession recorded during his police interview. But it wasn’t recorded in the way we now expect – as an electronic audio or video recording.
In those days, interviews were ‘recorded’ as a ‘contemporaneous verbatim record of interview’. While one detective conducted the interview, the other transcribed what everyone said, in real time, on a typewriter.
The confession was crucial to Jamieson’s conviction. Without it, there is simply no way a jury could have found him guilty.
Interestingly, this was the first Australian trial to successfully admit DNA evidence to convict the accused.
And yet, all of this DNA evidence excluded Jamieson. No fingerprints or other forensic evidence even tied him to the scene, let alone to the murder.
A prison inmate who said Jamieson had admitted guilt was discredited. Evidence from two eyewitnesses who identified Jamieson from photographs after his image had been circulating in the media was weak even by the standards of the time.
That leaves just the transcript of his confession - something he denies ever making.
The transcript (and why it can’t be trusted)
During Jamieson’s trial, both detectives testified under oath that the transcript showed the words of the confession exactly as Jamieson spoke them.
But this can’t possibly be true.
Even professional typists using modern equipment can’t transcribe a police interview in real time – let alone claim perfect accuracy. Jamieson’s interview was transcribed on a 1980s mechanical typewriter, by a detective acknowledged to be an unskilled typist.
The point is: Jamieson’s jury reached their verdict on the basis of misleading testimony about crucial evidence. That alone is reason to review his conviction.
But there’s a stronger reason.
There could be others
Jamieson’s trial was not an isolated example.
In the 1980s, as is now well known, police commonly transcribed a ‘verbal confession’ when no confession had really been made – a practice famously known as ‘verballing’.
Verballing, acknowledged by multiple Royal Commissions, had been a major concern for decades. Finally, in 1995, the law was changed to require that all police interviews should be electronically recorded – and interview-based verballing declined immediately.
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But what of prisoners sentenced under the old laws?
Of course, many are guilty, convicted on strong evidence independent of their record of interview.
Some, however, were convicted solely because of a confession they claim they never made, but were forced to sign. Those claims should have been investigated as soon as verballing was officially recognised as a cause of wrongful conviction.
But that didn’t happen. Worse still, verballing, now prevented in police interviews, moved to a new medium.
That’s why, as shown by the Research Hub for Language in Forensic Evidence, reliance on police transcripts continues to cause injustice long after the 1995 reforms.
Our courts regularly admit barely-audible surveillance audio – with police transcripts to assist the jury in hearing the content. Sometimes the transcript ‘assists’ them to hear confessions that were never really spoken.
All that means that Jamieson’s case is part of a pattern recognised by linguists around the world – admission of police-transcribed confessions as evidence risks wrongful conviction, and more importantly, risks people’s futures.
We call it ‘transcript injustice’.
Beyond a reasonable doubt
Maybe Jamieson is innocent. Maybe he isn’t. The point is, he is serving a life sentence imposed on the basis of thoroughly misleading evidence.
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Investigating his record of interview raises multiple irregularities that could and should have cast doubt on the admissibility of the transcribed confession, especially in light of contemporaneous evidence that his nickname and stature had caused him to be mistaken for another person known as ‘Shorty’.
All in all, there’s a slew of reasons to reopen Jamieson’ case.
But we need to go further.
Anomalies like verballing, once they are acknowledged, call for proper investigation of their underlying cause.
The questions we should be asking
When a bridge collapses, investigators seek to uncover the underlying cause, to ensure it never happens again. Wrongful convictions are a similar kind of collapse. The underlying cause deserves no less scrutiny.
Verballing is often blamed on police misconduct – and that is surely a factor.
But in every verballing case, a judge allowed the fake transcript to be used in court because it met the formal rules regarding what counts as evidence.
This means the problem doesn’t just reside with the police – the legal system itself (the judges and the rules they follow) can also contribute to miscarriage of justice.
Looking at it this way raises questions: Why would the law ever have thought a police officer could type a full and complete record of interview in real time?
How could police transcripts ever have been considered reliable evidence of a confession – with no corroboration beyond the word of the officers and the signature of the suspect?
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As the Australian Law Reform Commission pointed out in 1987:
Just as oppressive conduct can cause a suspect to make false admissions, so it can cause a suspect to sign a document containing those admissions.
If Jamieson is guilty, the Crown should welcome the opportunity to prove it with reliable evidence, beyond reasonable doubt.
If he is innocent, could Ms Balding’s "heinous murderer" be walking free in our community?
Let’s use this case as an opportunity for systematic review aiming to discover and reform legal anomalies that increase the risk of transcript injustice of any kind.
Join an expert panel online or in person to hear more about Stephen’s case and consider its ongoing relevance in 2026.
Wednesday March 4, 4:30pm to 6:30pm at the Babel Building, University of Melbourne.