2 March 2008

Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Appear Before - Grant Lalor

| Zilog
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The Canberra Times reports today (March 1 2008), inter alia, that;

“Justice Malcolm Gray upheld the appeal in the Supreme Court, and described Mr Lalor’s behaviour as indefensible.

He said the proceedings had been “coloured by the magistrate’s annoyance” at the fact that the lawyer representing Mr Roberts had arrived in court late, and without proper instructions from his client.

“In my view, it is not appropriate to disadvantage an accused person because of a judicial officer’s dissatisfaction with a lawyer’s conduct” Justice Gray said in his judgement.

In upholding Mr Roberts’ appeal against the sentence, Justice Gray said Mr Lalor’s conduct did not appear to “be at all defensible”.

He went on to say that … the magistrate had been potentially denying a fair trial to an accused”.

This former prosecutor never resiled from his former role, and continues to prosecute from the bench. Undoubtedly grounds for dismissal on the basis of mental incompetence. Over to you Stanhope. Are you pleased with yourself for having appointed this man in the face of widespread community unease, Mr Stanhope?

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Nice call El – I think you have it there.

I think Zilog has an axe to grind. Generally the only people who don’t like cops are those who regularly deal with them. What’s your story? Did your mental health get questioned?

If people are in his Court and wasting time and incompetent then it is fair enough if he rips into them.

I sat in on a bunch of Court days, A list and hearings when I was at Uni and some of the people who represent themselves and the lawyers are a dead set joke. I would expect if the case can’t be put forward from either the defence or prosecution then that side will not achieve the best results.

Ripping into people IS NEVER PROFESSIONAL. It fosters an atmosphere in which no-one can expect a fair hearing.

He has a penchant for inviting people to plead, then only when he doesn’t like the plea does he refer people to have their fitness to plead assessed. Talk about prejudicial. Talk about the cart before the horse. Talk about GROSSLY INCOMPETENT.

Those who want to talk about MAGGOTS (sorry, cops) should piss off to their own thread.

el ......TECortina 250 Deathtrap8:02 pm 04 Mar 08

Special G, It’s a truly shocking, horrifying story.

CanberraResident walked into the court and the magistrate didn’t ask how her day was!

I know, I couldn’t believe it either.

Geez Zilog, you use fancy legalistic terms like “inter alia”. Does that mean you are a learned colleague…or just a self-important twit?
Me, I’m a slack-jawed yokel. I like to see crooks locked up. Sadly some of decisions made by other former DPP stars make me doubt the “Hotel on Hume” will ever be more than 10% full. Your comments fail to recognise some of the stupendous bungles made by people who should know better. There is a particular former DPP Magistrate who’s softly-softly approach could be compared to the all-forgiving judge on the “Simpson’s”.
Here back at camp Canberra, the higher courts appear to only want to support the view that everything is somebody else’s fault. {We all remember the decenting (non-ACT) Judge who made his difference of opinion heard in the Hillier matter don’t we?}. It is a pity there aren’t more Beaks about who like to see offenders loose their liberty, even if only for weekends. But when the Beaks who do stand up get slapped back down by the higher courts, what hope do we have?
As others have said, back to your very limited view under the rock Zilog, you moron. Many aren’t happy to see Mr Lalor get pinged on this one.

el ......TECortina 250 Deathtrap7:35 pm 03 Mar 08

Bingo.

From the judgement:

As a consequence of the commission of those offences, which involved a breach of a recognisance of a suspended sentence of six months imprisonment.

Was he convicted of any offence he should have been binned for 6 months.

I have good cause to be angry about the revolving door that our Court system is. Repeat offenders continuously supporting their chosen lifestyle as parasites on teh rest of the law abiding community.

Make your case….

Not really CanberraResident – you elude to some horror story without backing it up with anything at all. no where when hows whys or whats – as I said make with the story.

If you are going to have a dig at someone at least back it up. From what I have seen of Lalor he is consistent and doesn’t take kindly to incompetance. If the lawyer didn’t present a good case as to why his client should get a slap on the wrist then he gets what he deserves.

Justice Grey on the other hand is a wet blanket in line with Higgins and quite happy for the current we love criminals and junkies stance that has been all to evident in the Supreme Court,

Grey has gone and stuck it to someone who actually has some balls to do the right thing by the community

CanberraResident10:18 am 03 Mar 08

Special G, there are some very good anger management courses available? You need to book into one quick smart.

Lalor is a bit of a grump and doesn’t put up with disorganisation, but having appeared before him before, when he realised I was just green but still knew my stuff he was fine.

No typical cop anything. All observations, opinions and attitudes are my own.

Actually I don’t see the correlation between shouting some one down in the court room and showing a decent amount of intellect. In my industry you would quickly loose your job and have a reputation of being a dickhead. But that’s just my opinion.

Well it was typical! 🙂

el ......TECortina 250 Deathtrap11:22 pm 02 Mar 08

You brought it up with your ‘typical cop attitude’ crap, or don’t you remember your own comments?

Tool.

Why is this about cops? I thought it was about a magisrate getting a serve?

The cops petulant attitude is what gets the ‘bashing’. With good cause.

Get back under your rock.

el ......TECortina 250 Deathtrap10:44 pm 02 Mar 08

More cop bashing with nothing to back it up?

Typical cop attitude from TAD and S’G, I swear it’s standard issue during indoctrination!

Well CanberraResident – start rocking – or shut up and go crawl back under your rock.

CanberraResident3:17 pm 02 Mar 08

You have no idea how happy it makes me to read this article about this particular magistrate. Finally … someone has seen what I saw years ago. My story would rock your world.

I like Grant Lalor and to say he performs as another prosecutor is not correct as I’ve seen him rip into fools and clowns in his courtroom on both sides (including myself when giving evidence). I expect that Justice Gray would also have the shits if a defence solicitor arrived late without having received any instructions from his client.

Where is this “widespead community unease” you speak of? Lalor is one of the good ones and is well thought of. Don’t pretend that you represent the community on this one.

What is your involvement in this? Did the big cranky Magistate yell at you in court too?

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