Posts by andrew r
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Hard News: Perception and reality in the…, in reply to Russell Brown,
Rick being busted has not, of course, stopped them being pot smokers. And all this guff about whether Rick has, in the judge's view, "rehabilitated" or not is absurd. He's a 62 year-old musician who smokes pot. What exactly is he rehabilitating from?
A lot of that is Defence lawyer speak. On the books cannabis is illegal, in attempt to persuade the sentencing Justice to give Home D which Bryant was right on the cusp of potentially getting, one has to show the Sentencer that assn with said illegal substance is diminishing, - kinda standard. I would say the sole reason he did not recieve Home D were his previous cannabis convictions, in particular his conviction for previously supplying cannabis - In many respects the Justice's hands were tied by relevant case law precedent. There is a massive difference in terms of sentencing direction between using cannabis,and whoooah ..dealing cannabis .
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Hard News: Some Lines for Labour, in reply to Che Tibby,
'not at all. there needs to be:
a) a movement away from naturopathy
b) a reimagining of policy. 'Huh ? Or more simply, you don't support much of current green party policy ?,Or maybe you're alluding to the - woolly jumper,folky image. Think you'll find, particularly with Russell Norman on board that's long gone.
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Hard News: Some Lines for Labour, in reply to Che Tibby,
'have voted Labour forever. not this time round. they're just too bloody useless for words.'
Greens maybe ? Russell Norman seems currently to be very, on the job.
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A huge call - but I think the Double Happys were, are still, my fav ever nz band. Yep, for me they beat The Clean. Those nights back in '82, '83 at the Oriental in Dunedin, as a 19 year old. Wow . And as for Randolphs going home, sheesh . An amazing time to be young . So glad I was there .
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My pal David Kilgour put me on to this ---- its old but awesome, I keep playing it over and over
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Legal Beagle: Hidden in plain sight, in reply to BenWilson,
Ha, good point Ben . Too tired , its Friday after all .
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“that would be interesting (but anathema to the criminal bar) would be a requirement for the defence to exchange briefs of evidence in advance, together with a restriction preventing them being used by the prosecution unless and until the evidence had been called… but I may well be alone in thinking that that might work.
Really ??? It seems Hayden you’ve spent more time prosecuting at the Bar than defending . What you propose here flys directly in the face of that premise …innocent until *proven* guilty .. . love the part particulalry about the Crown being able to cross examine on the Brief of evidence if the defence witness strays when testifying -awesome!! Golly gosh . Although Simon Power no doubt would be in complete agreement with you . I presume you were joking .
I practise regularly at the defence bar …. and i can tell you its becoming more and more of a chore for various reasons . Too many to go into here .
Not overly concerned with obligations to declare defences pretrial — I imagine myself and my colleagues particulalry in serious trial matters, will deny each element point by point if that’s what’s required – sigh. Generally the likely defence to be run is apparent anyway . Just another knock to the defence bar implying that it is we who ‘clog the system’
If the Prosecution/Crown did not so often over charge ….. that would speed things up considerably and invite more guilty pleas. If we were allowed to test veracity of key prosecution witness’s in pretrial hearings – that too would decrease jury trials and infact did decrease jury trials, when we had depositions hearings . Sometimes your client actually needs to hear the complainant testify – and in many cases a guilty plea follows and Trial is averted . Or the Prosecution realise their case is extremely flimsy – hey hey their witness’s aren’t quite the angels they thought they were – and charges are amended down adccordingly.
I think one of the more interesting things about the Bill in current form is that if a charge carrys more than 3 years prison but does not fall into the very serious mandatory Jury Trial cat 4 -= then it will be trialed summarily unless J Trial is elected . A judge alone Trial on say a rape charge would be very very strange indeed . From the defence perspective though I would anticipate Jury Trial would generally be elected .
Jurys are an amazing part of our system — amazing working infront/with them . Gawd thank Shamus Simon Power’s disappearing before he can erode them further. -
Actually think the best thing about the immortals area is you can escape for a while and have a drink in s pleasant space -cause if you ain't on any other rec drug and you do feel like a few drinks, then the pen option in the stadium really is very very hideous. Why do all the Brit festivals do this so much better? I recall the first bdo where you could grab a drink and take it anywhere and it was fine . Wouldn't it be amazing if the promoters actually scouted around for a nicer venue full stop. I mean why not?
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Read Sam Harris - The Moral Landscape, really good in that Richard Dawkins kind of way. La Nina is good for surf on aucklands west coast beaches and they have not disappointed, lots of clean slightly overhead surf days, water fairly warm too - though alas never as warm as Bali. Auckland sea temps get to 20c at best - 25c would be sooooo nice.
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Russ - repeat - seeing the fall requires not just good familiarity with whatever their most recent 2 albums happen to be at the time , but further you kinda need to really be a big fan of the same. Anything less and you get left in the cold . Remember for example those bend sinister and frenz experiment tours in london - we loved them because we loved the albums . Mark E will prolly never compromise on that position which is why he is such a unique artist in todays greatest hits music world. Gary S really likes their last 2 albums - thus his enthusiasim for the gig.