The Court of Appeal last week decided DPP v FG [2012] VSCA 85, which considered an unusual situation with a highly edited transcript and frequently un-transcribable recording, compounded by the loss of the recording when the appeal was heard.The original trial dealt with charges alleging sexual offences by the appellant against his natural son. Part …
Month: May 2012
Cook v Commissioner of Police [2012] QCA 118: demerit disqualification a matter of law
We've previously discussed the sometimes-fine distinctions between errors of fact and errors of law. (In fact, when I look, we've covered it almost ad nauseam: Fishing for a fact? Ostrowski v Palmer; Mistake of fact or mistake of law? and Mistakes of fact, mistakes of law (revisited) are the main posts on the topic.)The Queensland …
Judge as jury
Following on from yesterday’s post, it’s worth asking: what are the vital aspects of a court?It’s a question that lawyers and academics have devoted volumes to, but for the purposes of this discussion I’d like to focus on:• An independent, disinterested decision-maker; and• A somewhat predictable, rules-based approach to decision-making.When it comes to who will …
Into the fray
Some time ago now we blogged about excessive judicial intervention during the running of a case. As we said at the time, it must sometimes be difficult to balance the desirability of properly understanding the evidence given (or simply to resist the urge to jump in and do something properly), as against the importance of …
Earprints
This story in the paper yesterday caught my attention. It's about a burglar in Germany who has been identified by the distinctive earprint he has allegedly left behind when pressing it against doors to see if anyone is at home.Like a lot of these internet stories that do the rounds, it contains enough specifics that …