JUSTICE A VICTIM?
 
He’s the man in black. That tortured soul you have seen outside our courtrooms, and on the TV news, so many times in recent years. His name is George Halvagis. Sometimes, at victims of crime rallies, he’s there with his wife Christina. Pain and tragedy and a drawn-out legal process have turned their hair white.

Their daughter, Mersina, was stabbed to death in a cemetery while tending her grandmother’s grave. More than a decade ago. Peter Dupas was finally convicted of murdering  the 25-year-old woman but won a retrial.
 
His lawyers, presumably provided by the taxpayers through Legal Aid, appealed and the conviction was overturned. They claimed the charges should be permanently stayed on the grounds of adverse media publicity preventing a fair trial.
 
Dupas lost 2-1. But then sought leave to the High Court. And that was granted. The High Court will now decide if Dupas will again stand trial for the murder of Mersina Halvagis. Or never be judged.
 
One Appeals Court judge dismissed the ‘bad publicity’ defence. Quite rightly, Justice Mark Weinberg said:
 
‘ ..without wishing to be facetious, Jack the Ripper, having been convicted of the murder of one of his victims, would thereafter be immune from further prosecution.’
 
I like what Mark Twain once said: ‘We have a criminal system which is superior to any in the world and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day  who don’t know anything and can’t read’.
 
Without adding to the Dupas file I want to take this issue on in general. Claiming pre-trial publicity means a person cannot get a fair hearing insults any and all juries. And judges. Jurors do take their job seriously. They are instructed to acquit or convict on the evidence before them ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
 
Judges will say things like ‘ignore that last answer’ or ‘ ignore that last question’.
 
And the many jurors I have spoken to – before  the new laws made it illegal – all said  they were quite capable of doing just that.
 
Take the Dupas case to where it seems to be heading and think of this. The couple charged with the murder of Herman Rockefeller may as well be set free with their guilt or innocence never tested in court.
 
Likewise the killer of Maria Korp. The real danger here is that the High Court could add another victim. A thing called justice.
 
Monday, February 15, 2010

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2010