We've all heard the news of protesters demonstrating in the streets of Hong Kong, decrying the proposed amendments to that city's extradition laws with China. We've seen the television news footage of university students, right here in Australia, pushing and shoving each other over whether Hong Kong citizens should be tried in the Communist mainland. [...]
Once upon a time, if you did the crime you did the time. If not, you walked. Nowadays, it can be somewhat more complicated. The practice of criminal law in Australia is increasingly embracing the time-honoured US model of down-and-dirty, pragmatic plea-bargaining deals between prosecution and defence, aimed at achieving a compromise acceptable to both [...]
Robot judges in Estonia? American AI sentencing criminals to prison? Computers predicting crimes before they even happen? One may be forgiven for thinking such concepts come straight from a science fiction novel, or the rabid rantings of an online conspiracy theorist. The truth is they are all part of today’s reality. And it looks like [...]
This week Sky News aired the explosive documentary “Lawyer X: The Untold Story”, recounting the sorry tale of the now-notorious double-dealings of former Melbourne Barrister, Nicola Gobbo. Gobbo, who over a lengthy period represented a string of high-profile criminal underworld figures, was earlier this year sensationally exposed as a long-term secret police informant. According to [...]
This week the Queensland opposition launched a robust attack on a centuries-old criminal law defence. The 'mistake of fact’ defence was encoded into Queensland law in 1899 when our Criminal Code was first enacted, adopting a common-law notion dating back at least as far as pre-Norman England, that criminal liability requires some sort of actual [...]
A common submission by Queensland defence lawyers representing drug-driving offenders goes something like this: “My client had not in fact smoked cannabis for several days prior to driving, but hangover traces of the drug must have remained in his system, unbeknownst to him."It's an entirely proper and appropriate submission to make because, while it doesn't [...]
Lawyers have this thing they sometimes like to say. “Hard cases make bad law.” It’s true. About thirty years ago I got the job to represent a nice, sweet, softly-spoken lady who stabbed her husband 87 times with a serrated kitchen knife. Not surprisingly he ended up dead as a doornail. According to the neighbours, [...]
They say confession is good for the soul. That may be so, but sometimes it seems there's a whole lot of things it's not nearly so good for. Just ask Liam Neeson. The three-time Golden Globe winning actor, listed in “The 100 Sexiest Stars in Film History" and "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All [...]
There is a Japanese proverb that goes along the lines of “We’re fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance” and as history has shown us we love to dance on April Fool’s Day. For how long April Fool’s Day has been around and how it got started still remains a [...]
A generation ago, corporal punishment at school was commonplace. Canings and strappings that would now turn school mums like me apoplectic were once considered a routine and acceptable means of enforcing discipline and taming the unruly child. But seriously violent behaviour – way beyond regimental canings and strappings - such as beating young children with closed [...]
