What the Eastman case is all about

THE DAVID EASTMAN CASE

* On the night of January 10, 1989, a gunman shot Colin Winchester twice in the head as the Australian Federal Police assistant commissioner parked his car in the driveway of his Canberra home. He was the most senior policeman ever murdered in Australia.

* At the time it was suspected as a Mafia hit because Winchester was involved in the investigation of drug crops being grown by Italian organised-crime groups.

* But police turned their attention to David Harold Eastman, a former Treasury official with a beef against police who he thought were stopping him returning to the public service.

* Eastman, now 70, was charged with Winchester's murder and faced trial in 1995.

* The case was circumstantial. Eastman couldn't account for his movements at the time of the murder. Most damning, gunshot residue matching that found at the murder scene was found in his car boot. A witness testified to seeing Eastman at the home of the gun dealer who sold the murder weapon.

* Eastman also made numerous death threats including to Winchester. Police bugs captured Eastman muttering to himself in his apartment, allegedly admitting murder. However, tapes were on the verge of indecipherability and other experts heard something different.

* In November 1995 a jury found Eastman guilty and he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

* Eastman exhausted every appeal avenue. In 2012 the ACT government agreed to a judicial review and in 2014 Justice Brian Martin found crucial evidence relating to gunshot residue was deeply flawed. He said there still remained a strong but not overwhelming case.

* Justice Martin recommended the conviction be quashed and Eastman be granted a pardon. He was released from jail in August 2014 after the ACT Supreme Court quashed his conviction.

* A new trial was due to start in early 2016, but Eastman's lawyers mounted a legal argument calling for the case to be halted permanently.

* The ACT Supreme Court dismissed Eastman's stay application on April 14.