George Pell sexual abuse trials and fresh investigation

[K]

Media now report:

George Pell lodges High Court appeal.

[K]

"Who gets to appeal?

The High Court can hear an appeal of any case in Australia, but it is not duty-bound to hear anything. ...

How does a request to appeal happen?

The High Court will receive written submissions from Pell's legal team, and from the state. It could decide to accept or reject the case based on those documents alone.

It is very rare for the court to accept an appeal based on just written submissions. ...

Gans says it is "more likely" the court will ask for an oral hearing on the Pell case, and then decide whether to grant special leave. ...

How will the justices decide?

... at its most basic, the High Court will decide whether the case seems "legally interesting", Gans says.
...

What is Pell's case for appeal?

Pell is appealing the verdict of the Victorian Court of Appeal, not the original jury verdict. Pell's case, at its simplest, is that Chief Justice Anne Ferguson and Court of Appeal President Chris Maxwell got it wrong and the dissenting judge, Justice Mark Weinberg, got it right.
...

What happens if the court takes the case?
...

The judges could decide they want to hear all the evidence, or explore a narrow aspect of the case. They could decide Weinberg's judgment is the better view, dismiss the original verdict and set Pell free.

Alternatively, they could rule on a matter of law and send the case back to the Victorian Court of Appeal for another go under the newly settled law. It could order another trial.
..."

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/how-does-the-high-court-decide-whether-to-grant-george-pell-a-final-hearing-20190910-p52ps8.html

[K]

Why there are more men than women on juries

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/why-there-are-more-men-than-women-on-juries-20190821-p52jer.html

"While both sides have the right to strike people off a jury, the criteria for the Crown are stricter than the accused’s.

The Crown cannot dismiss on the basis of age, gender, race, physical appearance or occupation, according to Office of Public Prosecution guidelines.

But lawyers for the accused are able to remove jurors if they believe they would receive a better outcome in trial, without needing to provide any justification - what is known as a peremptory challenge.
...

In Victoria, the only information both parties receive - and base their challenge on - is the occupation of potential jurors and what they look like.

Critics such as the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission condemn the practice of peremptory challenges.
...

Mr Desmond argues that lawyers are justified when they challenge social workers or nurses as potential jurors.

“Nurses are exposed to graphic violence, trauma and injuries and they treat them on a daily basis, and I would guess a fair percentage of their practice involves potentially treating victims of crime,” he said.
...

Dr Jacqueline Horan, a jury researcher with Monash University and a member of the Victorian Bar, has long argued that peremptory challenges should be abolished in Australia, following the lead of the United Kingdom in 1988.
...

What happens inside a jury deliberation room is kept secret from the public to ensure the integrity of the process. But it means there is little known about the attitudes and possible biases in jurors’ deliberations.

Jurors in Victoria face up to five years’ jail time for speaking to journalists about deliberations on a case.
...

With so much risk of stereotyping and bias, some have posited that judge-only trials would be a fix. But Dr Horan says that option is far from a straightforward solution.

“Highly educated people suffer from exactly the same misconceptions about sexual assault as average jurors, so there’s no guarantees,” she said."

[K]

Choirboy can be believed - and Pell freed, Cardinal's lawyers say

https://www.theage.com.au/national/choirboy-can-be-believed-and-pell-freed-cardinal-s-lawyers-say-20190920-p52t8f.html

"To understand Pell’s pitch to the High Court, The Age asked two of the state’s most respected senior counsels, Dr Collins and criminal law expert Justin Hannebery, SC, to unpack his application for special leave.
...

"They are not appealing a jury verdict, they are appealing a Court of Appeal decision," Mr Hannebery says. "To get leave, they have to establish there is an error in the way the Court of Appeal has approached the question, and that it is an error that has got some public importance to it or is otherwise in the interests of justice to get taken up by the High Court."
...

"The chances of ‘all the planets aligning’ in that way would, at the very least, be doubtful," Weinberg noted. According to Pell’s application for special leave, the majority decision "did not engage with the argument about compounding improbabilities at all."

Secondly, the judges applied the wrong test to the opportunity evidence, asking whether it made Pell’s alleged offending not merely improbable but logistically impossible. This had the effect of reversing the onus of proof, requiring Pell to prove his own innocence."

[David]

^ But that last one was one of the precise things the appeal judges were openly discussing. How could it plausibly be argued that they overlooked it?

[K]

Not about Pell, but since this thread is also about judges, juries, etc., I'm putting this here:

https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1181706336209260544

[David]

This is pretty silly:

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/council-motion-calls-for-signs-at-churches-warning-of-dangers-within-20191009-p52z6h.html

[Wokko]

They'd better put those signs up at schools too, a child is more likely to be abused by a teacher than a priest.

[Pies4shaw]

Statistically speaking, they should also put them around stepfathers' necks.

[stui magpie]

^

At Catholic schools, yeah. I don't think history is going to treat the church very well, even when their motives were good there's been fallout.

The Rioli clan up in the Tiwi Islands got their surname from a Nun at Garden Point Mission, where a number of Tiwi kids were taken from their parents and raised. There were 4 Italian nuns ran the joint, all the kids had to drop their Tiwi names and take on the name of one of the 4 Nuns. Rioli was one, Verdana was another.

On the flipped side, there was an excellent interview piece in the Herald Sun last week about Anthony MacDonald Tippinwutti. It was in 3 parts. His mum abandoned him when he was a baby, his Grandmother raised him til he was 10, then she died and he went to live with a brother as full time carer for his 12 month old nephew.

When he moved to Gippsland with his adoptive mother at 16, his schooling was grade 1 level, he was diagnosed with Fetal alcohol syndrome, yet the religious school he was enrolled in was prepared to put in the hard yards to help him.

[think positive]

Geeezus

[Pies4shaw]

I'm not sure He was accused of anything, TP.

[David]

You never heard the phrase "suffer the little children", P4S?

[think positive]

[stui magpie]

Here's a non paywalled link to some reactions to the story/

https://www.news.com.au/sport/afl/essendon/australia-reacts-to-anthony-mcdonaldtipungwutis-inspirational-story/news-story/8840b64a40b57059f3b52e57133ddc26

It has links to the 3 part article. If you can find a way to read it, do.