No mug for Cash … Simon bucks High Court tradition … Defrocked barrister goes into the consulting business … Deselecting Black jurors … Theodora reports
It is disclosed on the register of the senator’s interests among a whole pile of other goodies and freebies that she has harvested, including airline upgrades, bottles of wine, tickets to the AFL grand final and grand final lunch, a complementary subscription to Foxtel, etc.
The last item of her register, dated, November 1, 2021, is a small ceramic mug estimated at a value of approximately $50 gifted to her by the president of the Human Rights Commission.
Why is that? None of the other freebies from corporate interests have been sent back. Is the mug too paltry a gift?
The attorney general has already shown her contempt for the HRC by appointing Lorraine Finlay as the new Human Rights Commissioner – a climate denying Peter Ridd supporter, an opponent of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, critical of an Indigenous voice to parliament, and a minor academic who is supported and endorsed by the IPA.
What hasn’t been mentioned previously is that Justice Steward bucked an age-old convention when he took his seat at the Saloon in December 2020.
The tradition has been that the lead judgment is written by a newly appointed justice for the first case on which they sat.
Our sources say that when Simon, an antique furniture buff, was invited to keep the tradition alive he didn’t think it such a great idea, and declined.
He’s turned up on LinkedIn in a new guise, Charles Waterstreet Legal Consulting.
He’s looking for work as an “independent consultant, lecturer in law, strategic planning specialist, senior tutor and educational professional”.
He says he is open to offers in Australia and the United States, either full-time, part-time, contract or temporary.
In October 2019, he sent an all points alert for funds to cover the next three months of his existence.
Apart from his taxation difficulties, Waterstreet came to grief with allegations of “inappropriate behaviour” and sexual harassment towards young female applicants for research jobs in his chambers.
Justinian has also had the sorry duty to report Waterstreet gypping young helpers who answered his call for emergency typing and research assistance.
There’s also a call for crowd funding for completion of a documentary about this troubled attention-seeker.
This is Georgia, after all, so no real surprises about the jury selection.
The dead man was jogging in a neighbourhood while the three whites say they thought he had stolen something, although there is no evidence of that or of any offence by the victim.
According to reports the three accused armed themselves and pursued Ahmaud Arbery in a ute, cornering him and then shooting him three times. One of the accused was good enough to video the event, which leaked online two months after the killing.
The other disturbing element of the case was the jury selection, which from a pool of 48 jurors saw 11 out of 12 potential Black jurors rejected, apparently on the ground that they expressed strong opinions about the case.
This was described a “race neutral” ground for rejection. A spokesperson for the Arbery family said the selected white jurors “met the precise parameters that were described for omitting Black jurors”.
The judge, Timothy Walmsley, wasn’t so sure that everything was “race neutral”, acknowledging that there appeared to be “intentional discrimination” with the selection of the jury, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.
The 1986 US Supreme Court decision in Batson v Kentucky found it to be unconstitutional for jurors to be excluded solely for reasons of race.
Even though the Arbery case is seething with issues of race, Judge Walmsey thought the Supreme Court decision was of limited application.
In the county where the trial is held the population is 26% Black and 69% white, while the jury in the case is 8.3% Black and 91/6% white.
Apart from the state criminal charges, there are also federal hate and attempted kidnapping charges against the three accused.
There is a 1981 precedent from the far flung NSW town of Bourke, that Judge Walmsley might have followed.
In the case of Richard James Smith, an Aboriginal man accused of receiving three gauges and four spanners stolen from a business in the town, Judge Trevor Martin used his inherent common law power to discharge a District Court jury after the Crown had successfully challenged three members of the jury panel who were also Aboriginal Australians.
Judge Martin said that the prosecutor has a right to make these challenges and does not have to give any reasons and the court does not have the power to request reasons.
Judge Martin said:
“What has been worrying me for the last one-and-a-half hours is that if I allow the situation to continue, some members of the community may think that appearances suggest that justice is not being done.”
Even though the judge felt justice would be done he thought “some citizens may feel otherwise”.
“I have given this considerable thought and I am considerably worried, but I am quite certain in my own mind that the proper thing for me to do … is to discharge you members of the jury from further service and thus to put an end to the trial for the time being.”
Could it be that Bourke is our version of Georgia?