So … a Queensland District Court judge has issued a permanent stay of a trial of a man charged with paedophilia; the man has been released after spending two and a half years in custody for the offence; the DPP will appeal.
Those are the facts and they are all we need to know, yet the media is in a frenzy, particularly in Queensland.
The media is repeating all sorts of allegations against the man — and thereby further reducing the prospects of a successful appeal. The main reason why the man has been released is a sustained media and political campaign against him. It seems that there is no presumption of innocence whatsoever in Queensland. The media and the politicians are the enemy of the public here — by over-publicising this man they have jeopardised any prospect of a conviction.
This is the ultimate in media hypocrisy. The media wants this man tried, convicted and jailed yet they abuse the privilege and responsibility they have. The end result is a great media story which should be headlined “How we, the media, made sure this man won’t go to jail”.
All of this will be litigated in the appeal, of course, and possibly in the High Court. The judge’s decision itself is quite unusual. The sensible response of a trial judge faced with this problem is to adjourn the trial for a long period and make effective suppression orders. When the case comes up for hearing, the jury would be given strong directions that the man must have a fair trial and that outside knowledge from the media must be ignored. The jury would also have to be told not to look at the internet. In Victoria, Carl Williams was tried and convicted by a jury despite massive negative media publicity. The whole jury system depends upon jurors being fair and obeying these directions.
This case highlights the tension between robust reporting (the public’s right to know) and the right of every person to a fair trial. Society has failed if it cannot give its worst a fair trial. Here we have an extreme result where the alleged offender walks away. This is a result that nobody wants.
Except, perhaps, Dr Patel.
It would be disappointing if the only reason for this trial to be abandonned was because the judge thought that media coverage had precluded a fair trial. This kind of thinking by judges assumes that jurors are so moronic and/or disrespectful of the justice system that they can’t, or wilfully decline to, understand, and can’t or won’t comply with, the court’s direction as to what evidence is relevant and what is irrelevant. It is a bit like the judge who assumed a juror couldn’t be concentrating on the evidence when playing sudoku, whereas court proceedings are often so dull (because judges allow barristers to repeat themselves endlessly) that most jurors probably spend most of their time daydreaming, so the sudoku player was probably more likely than the daydreamers on the jury to be alert enough to asssimilate the evidence and the court’s directions.
As I understand it the judge in addition to commenting on the inablity of the man to get a fair trial, also made the point that the evidence against him was flimsy, and more importantly even if convicted he would be unlikely to serve a term longer than his incarceration while waiting for his trial.
peter the evidence is weak relying solely on a five year old. no stay would be given on media bias alone.
The judge made the correct decsion but what is appaling is the fact this man has been in jail for over 2 years now for something he has never been or will be tried for. Whatever one thinks of him-everyone is entitled to be treated respectfully when it comes to a legal situation such as a trial for an alleged crime.
Hetty Johnson and her media screaming cahorts claim that he will offend again. If that happens the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the media and Johnson who crave the limelight or profit out of sex stories with little concern for the consequences. Where would the Murdcoh media empire be without other’s misery to make a buck off ?.