DPP v Weiss
[2002] VSC 154
•13 March 2002
| IN THE SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA | Not Restricted | |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
No. 1464 of 2001
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| BOHDAN WEISS |
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Ruling No. 2 (2nd Trial)
JUDGE: | Cummins J | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF RULING: | 13 March 2002 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | DPP v Bohdan Weiss | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2002] VSC 154 | |
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Criminal law and procedure – murder – jury – Judge’s directions to jury panel – provision of particulars of proposed prosecution witnesses – s. 32(1)(c) Juries Act 2000.
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Mr P. Faris QC | OPP |
| For the Accused | Mr C. Lovitt QC | Victoria Legal Aid |
HIS HONOUR:
Section 32(1)(c) Juries Act 2000 provides that the Court must inform a jury panel of the names of the principal witnesses expected to be called in the trial. In any event that is a course the Court long has followed. Today I am requested by senior counsel for the prosecution, Mr Faris, and by senior counsel for the accused, Mr Lovitt, to inform the panel of the names of all the witnesses expected to be called in the trial. Their request is a prudential one, we having lost a previous jury in this case through unanticipated geographical connection of one juror with the locality of relevant evidence.
I am not persuaded that the formal ritual of reading out 20 or 30 or 40 names is either a sensible or a rational methodology. For it to be meaningful, I think something needs to be added, at least the suburb in which the persons live, if not their occupations, especially with names which are frequent. Such particularity can bring its own problems in train. But in any event, simply the ritual incantation of a list of names on the back of a presentment I consider is not a useful or indeed efficacious procedure.
However, as both senior counsel before me have joined in requesting it, and given the fact that in this particular case a juror in the first trial lived in the area as to which evidence was to be led and which during the evidence of the first witness caused the discharge of the first jury, I am prepared on this occasion to accede to the blandishments of both counsel. But I would not want this exceptional course, taken in part because the first jury has been discharged, to be regarded as a precedent for a procedure which I consider is a ritual incantation.
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