Driver Lock-Out Laws
Over the next 24 months or so, the State government looks set to roll out various amendments to our traffic laws which will have a significant effect on penalties meted out to drink drivers on our roads. On 12 September this year, the Queensland Parliament assented to the Transport Legislation (Road Safety and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2019, which introduces substantial changes to a swathe of traffic regulation legislation. Amongst the more notable changes are provisions regarding the mandatory use of interlock devices for those convicted of any drink driving offence.
Ten Guilty Witches
In February 1692, in a secluded village in the isolated British American colony of Massachusetts, 9-year-old Betty Parris and her 11-year-old cousin Abigail Williams, began to behave very strangely indeed. It seems they had recently taken to screaming, ranting and raving, throwing objects hither and thither, making weird noises, and generally behaving in a way the local reverend described as “beyond the power of epileptic fits or natural disease to effect.” When other young females in the same village started to exhibit similarly disturbing symptoms, the good folk of Salem quickly concluded there was witchcraft at work in their town, and decided it was time to take action.
Behaving Badly O.S.
Last week, Australian man Jock Palfreeman was released from a Bulgarian prison after being incarcerated for 8 years and 11 months for the murder of a local law student in 2007. Palfreeman has consistently protested his innocence, his legal team unsuccessfully arguing at his trial that the fatal incident occurred after he ran to the assistance of a local man being attacked by more than 12 men, and that he subsequently acted in self-defence when the group turned on him. However, since being released on parole, he has remained in custody at a Busmantsi Detention Centre, awaiting authorisation to return to Australia. Now Bulgarian Prosecutors are reportedly seeking to have his parole revoked, meaning his ordeal may not be over.
The Violence They Suffer
Four men made headlines recently for chasing down a knife-wielding man in a crowded Sydney street and, armed only with milk crates and chairs, tackling him to the ground, disarming him and detaining him until police arrived. The male firefighters who leapt out of their firetruck in the busy traffic and joined the chase, wielding their axes, also received high-ranking accolades for their heroism. The NSW Police Commissioner described them as the “highest order of heroes”.
Taking It To The Streets
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. But what’s it all about? Doesn’t Hong Kong belong to China? Well, yes and no.
The Shame Game
China has yet again cemented its reputation as the great 21st-century innovator by coming up with a novel new way of convincing its citizens to honour their legal and community responsibilities. In the interests of encouraging wayward debtors to pay their dues, Chinese Authorities have devised a none-too-subtle system of naming and shaming them by projecting their names and faces onto movie screens across the country, including recently during the previews to the worldwide smash hit movie Avengers: Endgame.
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.
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.
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.
Richard Carter – A True Gentleman
I was very saddened to hear this week of the passing of Rick Carter, the great Australian actor and comedian, with whom I worked on Gettin’ Square, a film I wrote and co-produced in 2003. A veteran of scores of classic Aussie films, including Muriel’s Wedding, Babe, Rabbit Proof Fence, The Great Gatsby and Mad Max: Fury Road, and a long list of successful television series, Rick was an icon of the Australian entertainment industry over four decades of work.
In Defence Of The Defence
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 subjective culpability, whether based on moral guilt or negligence. Section 24 of our Code provides that a person who does something under an honest and reasonable, but mistaken, belief as to a particular fact, they are not criminally responsible to any greater extent than if that belief was correct.
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.”