Sydney Criminal Lawyers® Weekly Rundown – Articles from 13 to 19 November 2023
In case you’ve missed any of them, here’s a rundown of the past week’s articles: Prosecution of Bruce Lehrmann: Police Join DPP in an Attempt to Clear Their Names Police officers are seeking to join civil proceedings brought by embattled...
Changing a Criminal Plea from Guilty to Not Guilty: The ‘Interests of Justice’ Test
In December 1988, American mathematician Scott Johnson’s body was found lying at the base of a cliff at north Headland on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. In 2017, a coronial inquest concluded that his death was caused by actual or threatened violence...
Dutton Embarks on Racist Dog Whistling, as the Indefinite Detention Regime Crumbles
Indefinite detention has long been a questionable linchpin of the local asylum-seeking system. The oft-criticised measure has been one of last resort, as it applies to cases where people cannot be deported into harm, yet, as they’ve broken laws here,...
Australian Police Only Protect the Interests of Those Who Are Like Them
“There is a structural problem with policing, and it’s important to understand that in the context of missing and murdered First Nations people, women and children in particular,” said lawyer George Newhouse. “Like other police forces in our nation, it...
Expanding the Offence of Hate Speech Will Unjustifiably Impede Free Speech
The NSW government announced this week it is contemplating redrafting hate speech laws, as the criminal offence of hate speech enacted in 2018 has not resulted in a single conviction. So, rather than seeing the absence of convictions as evidence the...
Arrested Over Protesting Gaza: Wage Peace’s Margaret Pestorius on the NSW Antiprotest Regime
Friends of protest group Wage Peace converged on Sydney’s King Street Wharf on 6 November, the eve of the three-day long Indo Pacific Naval Expo, to highlight that it’s the arms traders at events such as these that profit from atrocities...
How Much Will My Sentence Be Reduced If I Plead Guilty?
A 64-year old man facing 23 allegations of historical child sexual offences, including having sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16-years, has changed his plea from not guilty to guilty just hours after his trial started. The...
Grassroots Australia Mobillises Against Genocide: CoCo Speaks to Palestinian Hunger Striker
A disconnect is apparent in the stance the Australian political class has taken towards the genocidal intent the Israeli state has unleashed upon the Palestinian population of Gaza, who, after 16 years of living in open-air prison conditions, are now...
Authoritarianism Accelerates: Associate of Assange Investigated Under UK Terrorism Laws
Australian journalist and publisher Julian Assange continues to sit in London’s Belmarsh Prison, as he’s been remanded for more than four years on behalf of Washington, which reached out across international borders to arrest and then prosecute the foreign national...
Stop the Genocide: Fifty Thousand Strong in Sydney Call for Gaza Ceasefire Now
Gathered for a fifth Sunday in a row, grassroots Sydney mobilised calling for a ceasefire to end the genocide being perpetrated by the Israeli state upon the Palestinian population living in one of the most densely populated areas on Earth,...
