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The 12 monkeys
49 Comments
Jack Marx
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 07:03amIn any contest of professional AFL, there are nine umpires making decisions that decide the future of the game. They aren’t just picked at random from the crowd – footy umpires must undergo years of rigorous training and intensive study of the rules. Such is the importance of a game of footy. Meanwhile, over at your local courthouse, someone’s going down for murder, and the game in here is for the court to decide whether the accused should be spending the rest of his life in some dungeon for the crime. It’s a very serious business – a good deal more serious than anything decided at the MCG. So, to whom does society entrust this most grave decision? Twelve morons, that’s who, handpicked by a blind lottery that neither knows nor cares whether the skulls of the dozen are filled with brains or porridge.
One could be forgiven for assuming the modern jury is a leftover idea from some less enlightened time, but the juries of faded history were considerably more sensible than the model we have today. In Ancient Greece, juries consisted of at least a few hundred dikastai (eligible citizens who’d taken the dikastic oath), with anything up to 2500 dikastai required in serious cases. It wasn’t until Henry II that the notion of “12 good men” (inspired, no doubt, by The Last Supper) got some traction, and, even then, the dozen were expected to be of noble, educated stock. The rapid spread of democracy - a political idea that places great faith in the inherent wisdom of the common turd – put paid to the idea of jurors being necessarily intelligent. Thus today’s jury is selected by lottery, the panel that decides futures and destroys lives trawled from the sewers of society. The judging panel at your local beauty pageant is chosen by a more discerning eye - even Dancing With The Stars and Australian Idol employ a more inscrutable executive.
The police must howl with exasperation at their efforts coming to this: the miraculous technology of DNA matching, fingerprinting, the man hours of paperwork and legwork, wire taps, ballistic and forensic analysis, the intense psychology in the interview room, the delicate persuasion of witnessness...all the billions of dollars and centuries of learning that have gone into the business of fighting crime, and it all comes down to the whim of a dozen duckheads who just want to get home in time for The Biggest Loser. It’s like raising a daughter to be beautiful and wise, throwing her the most lavish wedding ever seen, only to pay the Canterbury Bulldogs in beer to drive her to the church.
The situation is no more tolerable for the accused, who is forced to spend his or her trial worried sick about whether the old bitch with the glasses might have a prejudice against “druggies”, or whether the salt-of-the-earth farmer on the end is a member of the Ku Klux Klan in his spare time. Of course, once chosen by lottery, juries are then “selected” through a process of exclusion – presumably a safeguard against juries being stacked with bigots and idiots. But, as a criminal lawyer once said to me: “The last thing a barrister wants is a jury that can’t be manipulated.” Barristers choose jurors wisely, but that doesn’t mean the choices are necessarily wise where justice is concerned.
Anyone doubting the contempt in which the juror is held by our legal system need only look at what they are paid: in Victoria, the Crown pays each juror the princely sum of $36.00 per day – a few dollars less, interestingly enough, than a case of Crown Lager. It’s a deal no intelligent person, with a good career and a nourishing daily life, would accept. The only minds who might find jury duty an attractive proposal are those who, because society has no need for them, have got precious buck-all else to do.
In April of 2008, the Rudd Government manufactured a conspiracy of 1000 of “the best and brightest brains from across the country” to talk complete balderdash for one weekend. Why couldn’t similar leagues be fashioned as permanent juries, whose esteem and notability rendered them both capable and accountable, the dusty strictures of the courtroom surrendering to the technological advances that have taken place while all those jowl-necked, wig-wearing old farts have been bowing to statues and muttering in Latin? Today, it is more than possible for jurors to be furnished with all the facts of a case without even leaving their homes.
Of course, the argument for juries being staffed via a revolving door of anonymous simpletons is that a permanent jury of notable people will be more susceptible to corruption. But anyone who thinks today’s jurors can’t be “got at” is being naïve (just ask any court journalist). And anyway, what’s the difference between slipping someone a coercive 50 grand and paying a barrister ten times that amount to steamroll the system? The financial corruption of justice is happening daily, in plain sight of the judge.
What I’m suggesting here might seem a trifle idealistic, but it’s far from impossible.
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Jack Marx
Jack Marx rummages around in the world of current and not-so current affairs, matters of import and ideas of no importance whatsoever, strange thoughts, fringe theories and utterances commonly left unuttered.
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In my one experience with our jury selection process, it was very enlightening to see the lowest common denominator gaining selection for the culpable driving trial I was called up for. The jury ended up consisting of stay at home mums and blue collar workers, no doubt because the defence considered that demographic would be the most sympathetic to the young male driver who killed someone. Someone gave me a tip to dress up in a suit and tie, and I was ‘challenged’ as soon as I stood up, as were other similarly dressed potential jurors.
Not sure whether a league of professional jurors would work, but our bigger problem, in my eyes, is with the sentences being handed down.
Good to have you back, Jack.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (09:51am)
Some comments:
1. Interesting article, some very pertinent comments. All your posts have been excellent.
2. Someone once said: “Would you want your case decided by 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty?”
3. Defendants can elect to be tried by a judge alone these days.
4. Jury trials were dispensed with in motor vehicle etc cases because the juries were too sympathetic to plaintiffs, knowing that there was an insurance company to pick up the tab.
5. The jury system provided for in Magna Carta, did not originate because the nobles were concerned for the rights of the common man (and woman) being upheld, but because they wanted to be tried by their peers, ie other nobles, not by the King. This later came to be applied generally to the population.
6. Also, recall the trial of Joh Bjelke Peterson that didn’t convict because of a hung jury (no risque comments please). After JBP was acquitted, it was discovered that there had been one hold-out, against all the evidence, and that he was the president of some sort of JBP fund raising group. Somehow his affiliation had slipped through the net.
7. In the US, there are professionals who advise on jury selection as the potential jurors are called.
8. I remember a cartoon at the time Lindy Chamberlain was to go to trial. The matter had been news for so long and had polarised the nation. The cartoon showed a desert landscape in the outback of Australia, the horizon far away, a solitary spindly tree with a drover resting in the shade. Nearby was a helicopter, with two chaps in suits standing in front of the drover. They have obviously come from the helicopter and one is holding a newspaper that says “Difficulties in obtaining unbiased jury”. One man says to the other “That’s one, now we have to find 11 more.”
Wed 10 Feb 10 (10:03am)
Thu 11 Feb 10 (07:32pm)
“Would you want your case decided by 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty?”
hell no!
I rest my case (of crown lager).
“as a criminal lawyer once said to me: “The last thing a barrister wants is a jury that can’t be manipulated."”
He would say that, wouldn’t he? Just like the marketing/advertising types like to say ‘ads manipulate everyone’. Both self-serving narcissistic claptrap.
The one time I served on a jury only two of the monkeys were morons, four were airheads and the remaining six of us were sensible, astute and quite attractive. The middle-aged defendant had driven his car into a telegraph pole killing his passenger. The defence barrister was a prancing preening poser who impressed no one but himself. The police prosecutors were disaffected detached drones who were about as engaging as the creaking courtroom skylight.
Our deliberations were very simple — the defendant was a sleaze and probably guilty of something but in this instance no proof of drunk driving or speeding or fatigue or criminal anything was presented and we weren’t going to potentially send a man to jail on a hunch.
The six sensibles among us quickly declared a not guilty finding. The four airheads flitted and fretted for a bit before agreeing. The two morons, an elderly woman and frustrated younger bloke, despite an overwhelming lack of evidence, were convinced he was guilty. The woman was the sort to automatically equate defendant with criminal and convincing her to change her opinion wasn’t too difficult. The bloke seemed hell bent on asserting himself and even though it was obvious he was using this case to avenge some other unrelated grievance he was gently, politely and with an undeserved level of respect brought around to the majority point of view.
When the judge read out our finding the defence barrister gave this little contrived mock leap of joy that threatened to replace the defendant’s expression of relief with one of deep embarrassment. The prosecuting drones didn’t flinch a muscle and the judge recited whatever it is they recite at that point with only slightly more sincerity than a robot could have mustered.
The idea of taking away the power of the jury because it’s a corruptible process is understandable, but the power would revert to “notables”, those who do the corrupting in the first place! If my judicial experience is typical the only un-compromised people in a courtroom are the jury. If my jury were allowed to hear the case, ask the questions etc, we could have dealt with it with just as much integrity in ten minutes. We also would have told the cops to get their act together; either gather evidence or stop wasting people’s time and the defence barrister just how much of a wanker he was.
I’m sure there’s heaps wrong with the jury system, but I’d much rather be judged by whatever morons the lottery throws at me than indoctrinated pre-installed prefect types.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (11:21am)
Wed 10 Feb 10 (03:01pm)
Juror, Re: “If my judicial experience is typical the only un-compromised people in a courtroom are the jury. If my jury were allowed to hear the case, ask the questions etc, we could have dealt with it with just as much integrity in ten minutes. We also would have told the cops to get their act together; either gather evidence or stop wasting people’s time and the defence barrister just how much of a wanker he was.”
Firstly, do not kid yourself that you heard all the evidence. All evidence is subject to rules of admissibility heavily weighted in favour of the accused, and you don’t, as a juror, get to hear anything like all the evidence. All that bleating about the cops gathering evidence? There was probably 30 to 50% of what they did gather knocked out on those same grounds of admissibility. So the cops may have had good evidence, and felt their case was a strong one, but a ruling by the judge meant you never heard it. I have seen this happen to confessions and crucial pieces of physical and scientific evidence. Evidence can be tossed because it is too prejudicial, that is, it tends to prove the guilt of the accused! I kid you not. However, agree with everything you said about the barrister.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (03:07pm)
Juror: Re my earlier comment about evidence being excluded before the jury hears it, a case in point:
http://www.news.com.au/world/child-predator-loses-bid-to-dump-confessions/story-e6frfkyi-1225828550965
This is a story on this very site where a child sex offender is seeking to have excluded tape recorded confessions he made.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (03:47pm)
Example: **** ****** gets off on a ‘legal technicality’ which is BS. Certainly doesn’t mean he’s innocent or that he didn’t do it, just means he has enough friends in the system.
Watch it. - Jack
Wed 10 Feb 10 (04:37pm)
Veritas - In the article you provide a link to the defendant FAILED to have his confession excluded. The jury will hear this evidence.
That hardly proves your point.
Also if the cops were not able to admit some of their evidence it was no doubt for a good reason. The cops know the rules, if they can’t obtain evidence within those rules they do not have case.
And what are these rules? They are designed to stop the cops fitting people up, obtaining false confessions etc., in which the NSW Police have a long and distinguished history.
And as for evidence being ruled inadmissible because it is too prejudicial to the defendant - well the only thing which I can think of to which you might be referring to is the ‘Similar Fact Evidence’ rule (if memory serves).
This rule prevents evidence of past misconduct by the defendant being introduced as evidence that the defendant committed the current allegation. i.e.. Just because X committed a murder before does not prove that he committed this murder.
Even this rule can be overcome by the prosecution if the similarity between the crimes is close enough that some logical conclusion can be drawn that the same person was responsible.
If I am ever arrested (possibly for an act of violence committed in a mouth-frothing-rage brought on by the pure idiocy posted on a comments page), well… I sure hope you’re not on my jury veritas.
-/little contrived mock leap of joy/- Case closed.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (06:00pm)
Veritas, I bet you’re one of those who have a “cops are tops” sticker on your car. Whatever the failings of a system that may frustrate coppers, you’d think they’d be familiar with the system and would know how manoeuvre within it by now...?
I can’t imagine my case (which was about 25 years ago) returning any other sound verdict—certainly not from a ‘professional jury’ of “notables”. Us morons despite our legal ignorance, conflicting opinions and individual prejudice returned a verdict that would have been the same as from Jack’s high-falutin’ notables.
Why I think a jury of morons is preferable to a panel of pros is a couple of cases of people who killed abusive partners/relatives “getting away with murder”. The jury of morons were persuaded to return a not-guilty verdict (which went unchallenged, from memory) on a non-legal, maybe even emotional basis. Neither defendant denied the deed and the jury seemingly acted on principles and values (which the greater community seems to have commended) that are outside, or to my mind, transcend the law. I can’t imagine an empanelled jury of notables straying from their charter to do what’s ‘best’ rather that what’s judicially ‘right’.
It’s also interesting that the bystanders who complain of the idiocy of juries are often the same ones to boast of avoiding jury duty. Until they’re prepared to fulfil their civic duty they would do best to shut their gobs.
Thu 11 Feb 10 (06:23am)
Dan: I pointed out that article as it was a convenient and easily accessed illustration of the point I was making. I know it was an unsuccessful application in this case, and you might note my words, “seeking to have excluded”.
juror: My comments about your experience was intended to point out that, if you think juries hear ALL the evidence, then you are mistaken.
To both of you, read the Evidence Act (1995) Start with sections 135 to 138. They are not ‘rules’ that the Police get ‘wrong’. They are discretionary exclusions. Discretionary, that is, subject to the view of the magistrate or judge on the day. The Police often have the experience of evidence being accepted by one court, and excluded by another. Interpretation of the law is subjective. Even in the High Court we often have 4 to 3 majorities amongst the seven judges. If those judges can’t agree, what hope have Police and Prosecutors got? It’s like playing a game when someone changes the rules on a daily basis. And no-one knows how the magistrate or judge is going to rule on the evidence until the day of the trial. So all that work, cost and effort to gather evidence can often be for nought. Crime fighting is expensive, and we all have an interest in getting it right. Whenever the success of cases is subject to the capricious views of the magistrate or judge on the day, and the interpretation by juries of only part of the evidence, this system is flawed.
Thu 11 Feb 10 (07:29pm)
- Too long winded
- Too boring
- Too uninformed
I hear you preach brother, about doing your civic duty with jury duty.
They say jury duty is for those not smart enough to get out of it, and I see you fitted right in. Good on you. I just wish some of these horror stories are inflicted on your family so you can know a little more about the system. You must have no real life experiences to speak of you timid armchair warrior. People who speak out have walked the mile, and are still strong enough to stand tall at the end of it.
Wow - you served on one jury. I bet all the others not smart enough to get out of it voted you foreman. About as prestigious as being voted Mayor in the village of idiots.
Thu 11 Feb 10 (07:50pm)
Juror,
I just read your thread again. I couldn’t help it, like a curious set of eyes who just has to look at the bus crash.
I bet you:
- Are a neighbourhood watch co-ordinator
- Are president of the body corporate in your trailer park
- Have a comb-over and wear cardigans.
Thu 11 Feb 10 (10:00pm)
Aw, poor stevie, what’s crawled up your arse then?
I’ll assume both your posts on this thread are directed at me. Thank you for the critique of my post. Is there any point to it?
“I just wish some of these horror stories are inflicted on your family so you can know a little more about the system.”
Really? You wish for such sadness to befall my family? I’m so complete a stranger to you that I’m nothing more than an abstraction of black and white pixels, yet you issue this callous curse upon my family. Why? To make some debating point? That’s sick, mate.
You ridicule my posting about the one thoroughly on-topic experience I’ve had, call me an “armchair warrior” and spout some desiccated meaningless Charlton Hestonian cliched crap about ‘walking the mile and standing tall’. Those sort of blurtings are always good for a laugh but yours are especially amusing in light of your other posts here where you invoke the aura of such creditable luminaries as the Readers Digest and Derryn Hinch. And where your risible portrayal of your correspondence with the AG’s dept. is presented as some sort of triumph for you, you armchair warrior, you.
I wasn’t voted foreman, didn’t occur to me for moment to put myself forward for it, either. And all your other bets in your second post are also completely wrong. So if you’re so way off the mark in that it clearly follows that you’re way off the mark in everything else you say. I think Judge Judy might of said something like that one time.
Cheerio, Steve P.
Fri 12 Feb 10 (08:17am)
Juror,
Your right. I shouldn’t have picked on your faults. No point speaking about what would be obvious to all.
To the others,
Civic duty in jury duty would be good if the system was interested in truth. This would include revealing similar offences to a jury. This is probably the culpable driving trial which Juror proudly let the guy go free.
But when you have judges agreeing the system has failed (see Para 5) it is time for change.
$40 for a slab of Crownies? Buck me!
On topic, it seems the method of picking judges isn’t entirely trustworthy either. They may be educated and “intelligent” but some of the decisions they make and sentences they hand down are ridiculous. I often joke that if you were to kill, rape or permanently scar someone, you’d be much better off doing it where I live. I don’t care how many degrees you have, serving less than 18 months for sexually assaulting a child in your care is straight out dumb. Sure, certain legislation restricts what the judges can do, but a lot of them seem to be on a different planet.
And I know for a fact (via en email he/she sent me) that one particular person was a racist bigot - and yet had spent years deciding the fate of of the race he/she despised.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (11:23am)
Wed 10 Feb 10 (05:02pm)
You’re quite right, Ad. Being charged with a criminal offence overseas, where you obviously reside, instantly qualifies Australians for sainthood.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (05:48pm)
The “Tour Tips” down the bottom - very funny.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (07:37pm)
Wow a racist bigoted Hermaphrodite…
With sources like that you must be a journalist.
One might hope that this ‘permanent jury’ of notable people will be more susceptible to corruption
Wed 10 Feb 10 (12:05pm)
Hello Jack,
Fantastic comments. The benefits to this system would be two-fold. First, it would reduce unemployment, particularly of people who are actually over-educated for certain positions, as well as the over 45s who are smart, well-trained but because they are over 45 are felt too old for certain positions. Secondly, because it wouldnt rely on bringing people out of their workplace, it would impact less on business.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (01:00pm)
When the accused goes to court he is tried with a jury of “his peers”. Maybe that seems a trifle idealistic these days as well.........
Wed 10 Feb 10 (01:10pm)
Jack Marx for dictator! Hmmm, not sure about that you’d probably have me killed.
When I was a young punk doing all the naughty things a young gen x punk did back in those days I got called up for jury duty, thankfully in the end they didn’t want me. Maybe they thought I would be too ‘lenient’, then again I think it’s general consensus that the law is very much too lenient period.
If people don’t want to do jury duty maybe they should go and get themselves a dui charge or something, you could see it as like an insurance policy.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (01:46pm)
I think a permanent jury is a great idea. I was a moron for a one day trial and thought it strange that lawyers could choose jurors ( and from a group who didn’t have a good enough excuse to avoid jury duty). Seemed to me like they were stacking the jury with people they thought would be sympathetic to their side when they should be impartial.
I look forward to a similar piece on lawyers, barristers and judges. I tend to worry more about them than the jury.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (01:52pm)
Crikey reckons this blog is only worth $510.60.
Crikey
That’s two whole weeks of dury duty.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (02:17pm)
I’d go further. Why have juries at all?
In a number of jurisdictions, juries do not serve in civil cases, while summary offences are decided by a magistrate alone. A number of countries (i.e. Holland) have dispensed with juries altogether.
A judge can hear and decide a case. Unlike a jury (who give a simple guilty/not guilty decision), judges are required to give reasons for their decision, which makes appealing a decision fairer and more certain. Judges are less suseptible to intimidation than jurors and less lightly to base their decisions on irrelevant considerations. Unlike the secret jurors’ deliberations, a judges reasoning will also be set out in the judgment.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (03:00pm)
Wed 10 Feb 10 (03:26pm)
I agree, dispensing with the jury altogether could free up funding for more judges. These additional judicial officers could be used to create 3 judge panels for serious crimes, as is already used in the Appeal courts (in NSW anyway).
Please everyone be very carfule with this post. Do not identfy your name or case specifics, it is also your duty as a juror to not discuss what happens in the jury room.
The last thing you want is a matter to go on appeal because someone has blurted out what happened in deciding the facts.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (03:11pm)
Thu 11 Feb 10 (01:44pm)
I don’t understand. Why would anyone want what happens in the jury room to remain a secret?
Apart from endangering the jurors.
I’ve been called up twice. Once because I didn’t fit the demographic they were looking for (not a moron) I was sent home again for my trouble. Second, I had to sit on on a drugs case. Each group of “simpletons” are different. Some a specifically chosen that way, which makes me so angry. I’ve always considered JD a worthwhile task but unfortunately the ability to pick and choose the people involved makes it impossible for a fair trial.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (05:48pm)
Wed 10 Feb 10 (09:43pm)
So, Em, if they sent you home the first time because they were after people who weren’t morons, what were they looking for the second time ?
...and “Jury Dury” was probably the worst Pauly Shore film released on VHS.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (07:35pm)
Wed 10 Feb 10 (11:41pm)
Seen em all? What’s the best one?
Thu 11 Feb 10 (08:34am)
Sure, I haven’t seen it since I was about 16, but “what about Ricki Lake hurhurhur” is still one of my favourite comedy lines
Good point Jack,
while we’re at it, other tasks that can be taken out of the hands of the general rank and file moronia:
- breeding
- political representation
- teaching
- driving
- voting
I’m sure there are plenty more.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (09:02pm)
I always find it to be a strange irony that as one of the besuited candidates, i would most probably be rejected by defence council out of hand. Should I ever make it on to a jury however, the defendant would have to be guilty as hell for me to reach a guilty verdict.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (10:13pm)
Whilst I agree with you in some respects but there is an important aspect you are missing here, Jack. The jury still serves one purpose, almost never exercised, yet very powerful. Under British Common Law this is called “jury nullification”. It is the right for a jury to deliver a not-guilty verdict even when the defendant is (by evidence) guilty. A judge is not granted this right under law. Jury nullification is a contentious issue - and potentially very dangerous if applied incorrectly. But it is the last bastion of freedom offered to the people in the case of tyranny. It is the last right that says “we the people are the law”. I’m not talking about everyday incidents like murder or larceny - I am talking about crimes that the Crown considers the greatest, such as treason (for which the penalty, like murder, is also life imprisonment). You may think crimes like treason are a relic of the past, I assure you the Crown does not. The people of Australia may suffer in the short-term with blue-collar juries and their emotive verdicts, but in the end the jury is worth it for this law alone. The wrongfully convicted are of course, free to disagree.
Wed 10 Feb 10 (10:39pm)
Thu 11 Feb 10 (09:45am)
You’re an idiot. ‘Treason’ appears in court once every 12 years. Just shutup and stop posting on this blog.
Thu 11 Feb 10 (10:25am)
Jury Nullification (like a US Presidential Pardon)is absolute. It also exists in the US model.
2 recent high profile cases where jury nullification (acquittal even though on face value factually guilty) are likely to involve Said Morgan and Karen Brown. Go the jury!
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/twoyear-struggle-to-clear-her-name-leaves-karen-brown-broke/2006/08/05/1154198377040.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/10-years-later-vigilante-officer-is-finally-happy/2005/01/15/1105582768095.html?from=moreStories
A point or two regarding the comment about Joh Bjelke Peterson’s trial and the fix that was put in.
As I recall, the major holdout (one of two) was one who wormed his way into the jury foreman’s position and thoroughly dominated proceedings. He was, if memory serves me correctly, a prominent member of the Queensland branch of the Young Nationals, as well as a member of the ‘friends of Joh’ society or some such crap.
Though the selection process should have weeded him out (and left everyone understandably wondering how someone so obviously in Peterson’s camp got a look-in at all)the fact is that he wasn’t found out, wreaked his destruction on the judicial process, and ensured that Peterson essentially walked away unscathed yet again from his decades of political corruption and greed.
Thu 11 Feb 10 (12:25am)
Anyone who has faith in the system is a moron.
Chief Justices included.
I would would like to introduce you to Jason Van Der Baan, and you the community of Australia, deserve him and everything you get. Judges are not accountable, and the guilty go free. Every day.
Justice - me thinks not.
http://www.hinch.net/says_archive/printpage/17-09-02.htm
I know this is a Derryn Hinch article, but he puts together what is out there in bits and pieces elsewhere.
Do the courts always put out a “deterrent” sentence - nah. Here is a lovely story on a career criminal who breaks into a house, sexually interferes with a 4 year old, and gets a good behaviour bond.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/fury-at-lenience-on-child-molester/story-e6frg6nf-1111119059885
Thu 11 Feb 10 (09:16am)
Thu 11 Feb 10 (11:36am)
Good post Steve. I wonder where the people who think it’s some kind of a game where everyone gets a sporting chance get their day to day experience of life and justice?
Even those who have actually served on juries, (see post from juror) don’t seem to understand that the prosecutors of criminals in this country have to do so with one hand tied behind their back.
Thu 11 Feb 10 (02:51pm)
Good news though - Van Der Baan got put away for 8 years in 2002 and the last I read it looked like he was set to stay inside for a bit longer.
Thu 11 Feb 10 (04:15pm)
Hey Veritarse, why do you feel compelled to harass me across two threads to prosecute your prosecutor’s cause?
You have no idea what I do or do not understand about shackled prosecutors, please do not misappropriate me and my comments to serve your crusade. Besides, your precious persecuted prosecutors seem to have no trouble scoring quite a few guilty verdicts and filling our prisons with scum.
And Steve P!? You use the non-conviction stories of armed, uniformed ‘authority’ figures shooting dead perfect strangers to celebrate the system in one post and then cite Derryn Hinch (!?) to deride the same system in another post!
I suspect both you and Veritarse are aggrieved by something and seek to sooth the irritant by lashing out at those who are vulnerable, present no threat to you and are in no position to defend themselves against your assaults — defendants.
I reckon you’re just the type our magisterial appointers of Jack’s panel of notables would be looking for. Long may the porridge-brained moronic simians of our current system rule the roost.
Brilliant ! I thought I was alone in espousing these sentiments for years .
Now turn your your elequent mind to the practitioners of this vile trade ,- the avaricious parasites that prey on the unfortunate souls who by default get involved in the “justice system “ . -The lawyers ,- those “ servants of the devil “ who answer to no one for their actions and are more concerned with the purchase of a new BMW for the wife, or extentions to the house at Portsea, than the welfare of the client “ Family court lawyers collude to take 50%+ of the family assets with no consideration to the damage they foist on the children of a broken marriage .” Greed without concience “ !
Thu 11 Feb 10 (09:40am)
Thu 11 Feb 10 (01:23pm)
http://www.readersdigest.com.au/life/australias-most-trusted-professions-2009/article142043.html
Everyone knows lawyers are crooks.
The 2009 Readers Digest study of trusted professionals had Ambo drivers come in at No. 1, lawyers came in at 31 (taxi drivers were 32). Judges came in at 20, beaten by bus and train drivers, and just beating hair dressers at 22.
Now remember that Judges are Lawyers that have been promoted, the cream of the crop.