Wednesday 30 April 2008

Draconian power to discharge juror and bend trial

JUDGES will be given [draconian] powers to discharge individual jurors without having to abort a trial under reforms passed through state cabinet yesterday.

Jurors will be able to complain to judges or the sheriff about the conduct of other jurors to enable troublemakers to be discharged. [Bullying ???]

Legal counsel will also be given new powers to contest any decision by a judge to discharge a jury in the Criminal Court of Appeal.

The changes are to be introduced in the Jury Act in the next session of Parliament. They are [allegedly] derived from a Law Reform Commission report.

Judges are often called upon to discharge a juror when they are showing bias, have not declared an interest or are misbehaving, but often this causes a trial to be aborted.

The introduction of legislation to allow judges to discharge jurors and [bend] keep a trial going [allegedly] follows two recent cases where a juror's presence at a trial resulted in successful appeals.

In one recent case (Crown v Brown), a conviction was overturned on appeal because a juror had reported for service a day early and was empanelled in breach of the the Jury Act.

In another case (Crown v Petroulias last year), a judge's decision to discharge a juror because he had incurred driving offences led to a successful appeal in the Court of Criminal Appeal because the defence argued that the entire jury should have been discharged.

The Attorney-General, John Hatzistergos, said the proposed changes were the first of a series of reforms to come out of the commission's report on juries.

He said the change to allow jurors to complain about colleagues was important.

"They can complain and the judge can decide whether to discharge the juror," Mr Hatzistergos said.

"It's more to cover "[SMH] [situations]" such as where a particular juror has a conflict of interest they haven't discussed but it becomes apparent during the trial."

The shadow attorney-general, Greg Smith, said although the Government's changes appeared "reasonable", in practice jurors often already complained to judges if they had a problem with someone on the jury.

Quote: These laws are draconian and allow the Judge to push the jury around and sway the trial one way or another. Shame on John Hatzistergos, this creep wants to move trials the government's way when it suits the political agenda. This is not a trial by a jury of your peers. This is bullying. And why didn’t the Sydney Morning Herald get a response from civil liberties lawyers? Because they didn’t like it? Or they were too lazy? Or they want it to suit themselves because finding people guilty of crimes is in the corporate interest when it suits them? Shame on the (SMH) Sydney Morning Herald's bad reporting. What about balancing your articles? What did the Greens say? The most outstanding proposition is that the SMH in addition to these changes tried to make their article look convincing by adding to it some notion about juries getting more money etc and saving the doctors and professionals from having to appear, which is totally irrelevant in relation to the above article that is draconian.

[PS) a Google search for this article reveals the real truth i.e. "Did you mean: Power to discharge jury and save trial."]

[PPS) "The New South Wales Law Society says millions of dollars will be saved under new reforms giving judges the power to discharge individual jurors without aborting a trial." But it's not about saving millions it's about a fair trial and justice for all not justice for the state government, corporations or even the Law Society. How many millions does it cost to keep an innocent person in jail? So much for the Law Society's comment. ]

Related:

Ruthless and grubby: DPP lashes Morris Iemma's team
THE Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery, has dumped a bucket on the Iemma Government, describing it as "ruthless", guilty of "grubby" tactics and saying it has "crucified" his office.

NSW Govt 'trying to muzzle DPP'
The New South Wales Government is fighting off accusations it is interfering with the independence of the state prosecutor by appointing a manager to his office.

DPP urges tougher child identity laws
The New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions is calling for even stricter conditions on the naming of children involved in criminal proceedings.

Lift the veil and show us what the jurors see
The NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Nicholas Cowdery, sees some problems in all this. He points to the tension between the public's right to know and the community's "confidence in the administration of justice". If the media edits or selects bits of the evidence the reporting would be very bias and unfair, unless you trust corporate media that is. Anyway I think this is right wing propaganda make up your own mind I guess...

TRIAL BY MEDIA! or trial by a Jury?
Once a person is charged there should be a media black ban on that case until a jury has found the person either guilty or not guilty. If the media have the power to elect our political parties then they also have the power to find people guilty. Especially people who are being tried over and over again. Now with no double jeopardy rules and majority verdicts in NSW then high profile cases have become susceptible to being tried by the media and not by the jury in my humble opinion.

In addition to this story and typical of the right wing corporate media propagandists with one saviour Nicholas Cowdery

Naming and shaming a bad idea, say MPs
A STATE parliamentary committee has rejected calls for juvenile criminals to be "named and shamed" and instead wants media blackouts on identifying children broadened.

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