Jury Duty (1 Viewer)

[xeuyrawp]

Yeah what I meant was that when the prosecution are challenging, it is against DPP policy to challenge all the certain people in order to end up with a jury full of all the same sort of people (which will presumably be beneficial to the prosecution case).

Example: 12 jurors have been called up...........it is a case prosecuting a young guy for drug trafficking......it would be against DPP policy for a prosecution barrister to use their challenges to get rid of any young people on the panel in order to end up with a panel full of old women (who in general would be far less tolerant and understanding of young people and drugs).....the idea of a jury is to be tried before a cross-section of society....this includes people old and young and in-between........using your challenges to end up with all the old people isn't really a right thing to do, because you're really denying the person who's being tried the right to a fair trial....

Im talking about a case by case type thing...you aren't really meant to be selective in order to achieve a jury of a certain type of people.

I see. I take it Barristers working with the DPP then don't get paid on spec?

That's interesting

 

[MiuMiu]

Not sure what spec is but id assume barristers would be on a set salary.

 

[MoonlightSonata]

You can be sure it's less than commercial practice

 

[santaslayer]

You can be sure it's less than commercial practice

Which makes it confusing. The DPP are equally, if not, more talented then the commercial ones. Their salary is not symbolic of their intellect. What confuses me more is why these people work for the DPP.

 

[MiuMiu]

Private practise will always attract a higher salary, the DPP, like anything public, only has limited resources.

I spose it could come down to the whole conscience thing, you could be the most talented barrister, but the highest paid barristers are generally the ones representing some very bad characters, and if you don't want to do that, you end up with the DPP who can't offer you as high a salary as a private firm can...

 

[ManlyChief]

I spose it could come down to the whole conscience thing, you could be the most talented barrister, but the highest paid barristers are generally the ones representing some very bad characters, and if you don't want to do that, you end up with the DPP who can't offer you as high a salary as a private firm can...

That's a bit of a harsh generalisation isn't it - I would not have thought highly paid barristers were spread reasonably evenly between 'good' and 'bad' characters.

If we are speaking across the Bar as a whole, the most highly paid barristers are the silks in Philip Street specialising in appellate, equity and commercial practice - areas of law that seem, to my mind at least, eschew normal distinctions between 'good' and 'bad'.

Even if we were speaking about the criminal bar in isolation, I think the numbers of defendants who can afford the highly paid barristers would be evenly spread - after all, an habitual criminal who has been in prison on and off for the last 25 years and who is up on a charge of murdering three people (the 'bad' character) is hardly more likely to be able to afford a highly paid barrister than is a 'normal' 9-5 worker type up on similar charges (the 'good' character).

I think the highly paid evil criminal defender type lawyer is an illusion, built up by a prevailing negative stereotype in US television/film etc that has infected Australia. This is a shame.

 

[ManlyChief]

Which makes it confusing. The DPP are equally, if not, more talented then the commercial ones. Their salary is not symbolic of their intellect. What confuses me more is why these people work for the DPP.

Yes and no. You do get a number of talented people working for the DPP - often they are people committed to cause lawyering.

Out of interest, does this DPP still brief barristers in private paractice for some cases? ... I know they used to do that regularly.

 

[MoonlightSonata]

Which makes it confusing. The DPP are equally, if not, more talented then the commercial ones.

Oh I don't know about that

If I were to speculate, I'd say that constitutional and commercial barristers deal with extremely complicated subject matter much more than criminal lawyers. Though the criminal barristers probably have the edge when it comes to the purely trial side of things (speaking, cross, evidence, etc).

 

[MoonlightSonata]

If we are speaking across the Bar as a whole, the most highly paid barristers are the silks in Philip Street specialising in appellate, equity and commercial practice - areas of law that seem, to my mind at least, eschew normal distinctions between 'good' and 'bad'.

*Ahem!* .....


But yes. I'm going to take those types of courses for my electives. Hopefully they won't hit me with too much Gummow reading.

 

[erawamai]

*Ahem!* .....


But yes. I'm going to take those types of courses for my electives. Hopefully they won't hit me with too much Gummow reading.

I think you may get hit with plenty of Gummow reading.

An interesting quote in relation to whether a co owning joint tenant is allowed the benefit of the right of survivorship if he or she killed the other join tenant. The original rule was that if the joint tenant killed the other join tenant but where self defence and provocation were proved then he or she was entitled to the right of surviviorship.

The new rule is that even if self defence or provocation is proved the surviving joint tenant is not entitled to the benefit of survivorship. He or she must hold the legal estate in trust for himself and for the estate of the dead joint tenant as tenants in common in equal shares.

Meagher JA in Troja and Troja

'There is something a trifle comic in the spectical of Equity judges sorting felonious killings into conscionable and unconscionable piles'

- For those who have no idea what equity is or what joint tenancies are then the joke will make no sense. Sorry

 

[BillytheFIsh]

Out of interest, does this DPP still brief barristers in private paractice for some cases? ... I know they used to do that regularly.

Yes.

The official word is that they only brief out where necessary in terms of either logistics or speciality, but it happens a lot more than that.

The reason I like the most is when they don't want the defendant briefing that particular barrister so they get in first.

Oh - if any of you budding crim lawyers have the idea of being in private practice but getting DPP briefs, just a heads up that you'll be knocking about 50-60% off your fee on brief if it comes from the DPP vs a normal client.