12 August 2008

A new DPP - Jon White

| johnboy
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The ABC brings word that local lawyer Jon White has been appointed to be the ACT Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

This rather important position has been vacant since last December when Richard Refshauge took the promotion to the bench of the Supreme Court (so it’s not as if the gubbmint didn’t see that coming either).

He’s currently running the prosecutions branch of the Commonwealth DPP, so he sounds ready to roll.

UPDATED: Simon Corbell has now put up a media release making the announcement:

    “He is both an experienced trial advocate and manager, and has extensive experience in prosecuting complex cases for the Commonwealth.”

    Jon White, 51, was born and educated in Canberra, graduating from the ANU with degrees in Arts, and Law with Honours.

    He worked for a Commercial law firm in Sydney for some years before moving to the Sydney Office of the Commonwealth DPP. He then returned to Canberra to what was then the Canberra Office of the Commonwealth DPP.

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Vic Bitterman8:26 pm 13 Aug 08

vg said :

How much pity do you have for the people that actually do all the back breaking investigative work that enables the DPP to have their evidence? They don’t get any of it, they just work with the end product.

Oh gawd, here we go. Play the violin for the people who choose to do that career.

No-one is forcing you to do your job. Your job and your fellow wallopers comes with territory, so please. Spare us your rhetoric. You didn’t expect to work long hours? You didn’t expect to cordon off traffic with a cadaver sticking out of a windscreen? You didn’t expect to spend hours cordining off roads, and then heasing out tyre skid marks leading up to a collision?

Don’t like the conditions? Feel free to quit.

How much pity do you have for the people that actually do all the back breaking investigative work that enables the DPP to have their evidence? They don’t get any of it, they just work with the end product. Yeah sure, a few long days, but tough work…oh please. How tough are those long hours when its in a 22 degree office?

You won’t see anyone from the DPP standing by the dead body at 4am, or picking through filthy crime scenes to find evidence.

No doubt their job is vital to the way the system works but more often than not the evidentiary product is handed to them on a platter, all they do is sell it

I pity the poor guy he is going to do all the tough work, long hours, public eye and all that and then when he and his crew of, what 4 or 5 now? finally get a conviction the lovely judges that hold the safety of society in such high stead will simply let people of with good behaviours, community service (maybe try spending time in gaol as community service) or a suspended sentence. If someone told me I could go ahead and kill anyone I wanted for roughly 2 years in gaol, most of it served before the trial even (fed and watered, educated, free gym, tv) and I was slightly annoyed at someone well the equation starts to get a little tempting…

Good luck, i think he’ll need it.

iCanberran you are way off. He is not Columbo, he is Inspector Gadget. Haven’t you seen the helicopter blades pop out of his hat, shortly before he flies off into the sunset?

Pay attention boy…

Vic Bitterman6:56 pm 12 Aug 08

Garfield’s owner is Jon.

Just thought I’d throw in a comment from left field. 🙂

Did anyone notice on Win News tonight that Corbell was wearing a Columbo style trench coat. I know they spent a lot of time investigating and searching for a new DPP, but do we really need visual aids.

And an Arts degree to make him a human being! 🙂

Mike Crowther12:36 pm 12 Aug 08

Really? A Law degree you say? Well, that’s got to be useful.

How come it has taken so long to fill this position?

In the meantime, half the DPP staff have quit!

definitely, the failing is on the part of the whole world.

But surely it isn’t her fault that the whole world is against her? 😉

She doesn’t like anyone who doesn’t understand her interminably complex greivances.

Which pretty much rules out everyone who ever lived.

And anyone with the mental capacity to understand (not me) almost certainly should be doing something more useful with their time.

Being on her sh*tlist is a bit of a red badge of courage in certain quarters.

Crazy Chester doesn’t like Richard Refshauge!

Refshauge is a very smart man, and a nice bloke to boot. He seemed to have his finger on the pulse as far as public sentiment was concerned. Lets hop he doesn’t end up having the operation that all the incumbent judges have had, where they lose all sense of what the community that they are supposed to represent feels

Richard Refshauge was the prosecutor in a murder case that I sat through with 11 others. I saw him conduct himself with professionalism, clarity and empathy, so I’m sure he’ll be a good judge.

(Little bit OT, but nobody else has commented yet, so why not.)

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