We have a vastly overloaded court system in New South Wales and most prisoners face endless delays before they face a judge and jury. Even when the evidence against them is overwhelming they usually plead " not guilty " in the hope that their lawyer will pull some legal rabbit out of his hat that grants them freedom.
In many cases, this before trial period is spent on remand which means they are actually behind bars in the same manner of those convicted and sentenced because bail has been refused, and in some cases the time spent on remand is greater than the usual prison term that applies to the offence with which they are charged.
The legal system is a well known lottery in which lawyers game the system to try and get their clients to appear before selected judges. The judiciary are known for their " hard "or " soft " attitude in sentencing and getting a case on an individual judges docket is all a matter of timing.
One of the peculiarities of our legal system is the custom of granting a twenty-five percent reduction in the time to be served to those who enter a " guilty " plea. This has led to an overwhelming change of plea to " guilty " at the last moment, just as the prisoner is finally having his or her case brought to trial.
Now a new approach is delivering results claimed to be " spectacular ". From March 2015 District Court judge Ian McClintock presided over a " rolling list " court where dedicated teams of prosecution and defence lawyers appeared before him alone, rather than returning to other judges after adjournments. With the inducement to try and get the case before another individual judge gone, the ratio of " guilty pleas " in this rolling list court jumped from the average of twenty-two percent in the ordinary court system to a much faster forty percent.
It seems that placing senior lawyers in both teams of defence and prosecution to negotiate the terms of the charge and sentence allowed these issues to be settled much more quickly, freeing up the entire court system. It is now proposed that cases be randomly allocated between regular lists and Judge McClintocks rolling list because his cases progress from committal hearing to trial forty percent faster.
Some may see this as a hidden threat. Don't waste the courts time with defences that must clearly fail or you will lost the discount for an early guilty plea. It is quite possible some innocent people will accept this " deal " just to end the time they are spending in a threatening environment on remand, virtually serving a sentence that has not been sanctioned by a court. Remand was supposed to contain only those deemed a threat to society but bail conditions have hardened and today many more languish on remand for other reasons.
It would be unfortunate if we lose the reason why the " innocent until proven guilty " maxim applies to our court system. Many prosecution cases fail on a technicality or the evidence submitted is not convincing, but this rolling list court seems more disposed to deliver speed by using the reduced sentence inducement to encourage a guilty plea.
The wheels of justice were said to grind slowly. Perhaps justice in overdrive - is no longer justice !
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