Tag: brisbane
  • Criminal Law, Jonathan Nyst

Not Much Of A Bargain

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 parties. And in recent years Australian courts have tacitly encouraged that process by routinely offering discounted penalties to those who arrive at an early decision to plead guilty on mutually-agreed facts.
  • Criminal Law

Predictive Policing

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 it’s only a matter of time before concepts like predictive policing and artificial intelligence will be an everyday feature of justice systems worldwide. 
  • Criminal Law, Jonathan Nyst, Opinion

Secret X Files

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.
  • Alex Somers, Criminal Law, Traffic Law

High Time For Reform?

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."
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, International, Opinion

Mea Culpa

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.
  • Criminal Law, Opinion

Entertainment -v- Evidence

The concept of an impartial jury is central to the operation of our criminal justice system. For hundreds of years we have put our faith in those twelve ordinarily citizens, unbiased and unswayed by extraneous and irrelevant considerations, to stand as the fail-safe system and last line of defence between citizen and state. But of course the key part of that concept is impartiality. For any accused person to have a fair trial, the jury that deliberates on their guilt or innocence must be entirely unbiased and undistracted by any influence beyond the evidence adduced in court.
  • Family Law

A Tough Job

Before you can become a plumber or a carpenter you have to undertake years of technical training, work under close and exacting supervision, sit for exams, and earn your ticket. No one gets to be a doctor, lawyer or accountant unless they first qualify for university, then study day and night for years, sit regular and sometimes arduous examinations, and pass with flying colours. But to become a parent, all you have to do is find a partner, cross your fingers, and hope for the best.
  • Chris Nyst, International, Opinion, Politics

In The Company Of Heroes

On 11 November 1918, at the French town of Compiegne, high-ranking officers of the Entente, the coalition that opposed the Central Powers of Germany, Austro-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria during World War 1, signed an armistice with Germany, ceasing all hostilities on the Western Front. At eleven o’clock on that morning - the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month - the guns finally fell silent, after four long years of unprecedented slaughter. The first global war had left an estimated 40 million casualties, including over 200,000 young Australians killed or wounded in action. It became known as “The War to End All Wars.” Unfortunately, it wasn’t.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, International

A Meal Eaten Cold

The Italians say Revenge is a meal that’s best eaten cold. I guess Jimmy Bulger would have agreed. James Joseph Bulger Junior grew up in abject poverty on the dirt-poor streets of South Boston in the 1930’s and 40’s, along with his two younger brothers, William, better known as “Billy,” and the baby, John, whom the Bulgers dubbed “Jackie.” Billy and Jackie were good boys who worked hard at school and excelled, but Jimmy was a tough street scrapper who succumbed to the lure of the streets. While Jackie went on to become a court magistrate, and Billy a lawyer and eventually Democratic Senator William Michael Bulger, the longest-serving President of the Massachusetts Senate, Jimmy was a career criminal, a ruthless gangster and organised crime boss, leader of Boston’s infamous Winter Hill Gang. The local cops nicknamed him “Whitey” because of his blond head of hair. Jimmy hated the name, but it was a tag that stuck to him all his life.
  • Chris Nyst, Entertainment, Opinion

The Phantom Of Youth

They say youth is wasted on the young. But it may not always be so. Around one hundred years ago, a young, little-known American writer by the name of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, who later would be posthumously celebrated under the name F. Scott Fitzgerald as one of the greatest American authors of the twentieth century, submitted to Collier’s Magazine an odd little story entitled “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” It recounted the strange tale of a baby born in Baltimore in 1860, with all the wizened appearance of a seventy-year-old. Real-life stories of rare medical conditions that caused babies to be born looking like septuagenarians were not unknown even then, but Fitzgerald gave that profoundly sad truth a whimsical tweak.
  • Chris Nyst, Criminal Law, International

The Ire Of The Beholder

Like beauty itself, art is undoubtedly very much in the eye of the beholder. A couple of years back, a world-renowned Brisbane-born street artist, whose celebrated work is permanently exhibited in the Australian National Gallery and regularly sells for thousands of dollars in the swank art-houses of Sydney and Melbourne, was accused of painting graffiti at various sites around Brisbane. For his sins he was charged by Queensland police with wilful damage of property.
  • Brendan Nyst, Dispute Resolution, Litigation

Big Bucks -v- The Dreaded Self-Litigant

Those more cynical than I have been sometimes known to quip that "Justice favours the well-heeled". It is undoubtedly true. Whilst money may not buy happiness, it can certainly deliver lots of lawyering, and in the cutthroat world of commercial litigation, he with the deepest pockets is often very likely to be at a distinct advantage. Of course, in the modern world, that's true of any competitive environment, from sport to industry to military conflict. The bigger the bucks, the bigger the bang.