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When a dressing-down in court wins over decorum
There is something to be said for scolding irreverent defendants over the formal dressing-down that court decorum demands. For one thing, it’s in a language they understand.
Naomi Neilson
When two prisoners accused of stabbing drug kingpin and Victorian underworld gangland leader Tony Mokbel laughed at their new 10-year sentence, Judge Liz Gaynor’s outburst not only put them in their place but introduced a new language to typical court decorum.
Judge Gaynor received praise across social media for her dressing-down, with one Twitter user asking for more judges to use this approach and several others asking that she run in the next Australian federal election (or, failing that, pick up a Judge Judy-like TV show).
One criminal lawyer tweeted that Judge Gaynor was not acting to the cameras when she addressed the two defendants about their sentence, adding: “There is something to be said about sentencing a person according to legal principles, but also in the language the convicted person will understand and take on board.”
Mr Mokbel almost died as the result of the attack, and he was placed in an induced coma to undergo emergency brain surgery. He had a collapsed lung, displaced brain tissue and a fractured skull, broken jaw and collapse right lung. He has since recovered and did not want to assist the police with prosecuting the two attackers.
Mr Bennett and Mr Teuira, who each received an additional five years onto their sentence, attacked Mr Mokbel over a newspaper article that suggested he was a prison “enforcer”. The judge ruled it was also to reinforce power of Pacific Islander prison group “G-Fam”.
“You two young blokes, two-on-one, mauled and maimed a 53-year-old man. That’s what you did. When you’re 40 see what G-Fam and the bros do for you,” Judge Gaynor said.
Ms Gaynor may be the most public example of this kind of judgement, but there are many other Australian judges who choose a language more familiar to the defendant.
A man jailed over a Bourke Street massacre-inspired CBD car rampage has backed down from an appeal after a judge warned she would lock him up forever late last week.
Blayze Pemberton-Burden had hoped Judge Rosemary Carlin would dismiss a 12-month jail term and instead grant him a community correction order. He told her that he thought he deserved the opportunity, based on his clean criminal record.
But Judge Carlin was not going to take it, warning that if he proceeded with the appeal he would be at risk of getting more time locked behind bars.
“The matter is so serious that in my view it does warrant a term of imprisonment,” Judge Carlin said when warning the defendant. “What confidence can I have that he is not going to do something that is similarly bizarre and potentially dangerous?”
Naomi Neilson
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
You can email Naomi at:
