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Case Management is here

Judicial Case Management is a system designed to identify and define issues in dispute and to reduce delays, costs and unnecessary pre-trial activities.

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Judge Roy Bean & friends

In a criminal trial the role of the villain is always allocated to the accused, it seems.

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Pleading the Belly

However, I look forward to the case where I inform a court that my client will so plead.

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Human Nature

Consider this; in the writer’s experience when the word “independentâ€? is associated with the title of any institution, it is invariably the case that the institution is not “independentâ€?.

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Indictments are like cheques; sign them!

endorsed the decision in R v Morais (1988) 87 Cr App R 9. In that case the judge had given leave to prefer a voluntary bill against the accused, who was arraigned on six counts in the bill. The accused pleaded not guilty, was convicted on four counts and was sentenced. Relying on the Administration of Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1933, he appealed on the ground that the bill had never been signed by the proper officer: without a signature, he argued, there could be no indictment, and without an indictment there could be no valid trial.

In Morais the Court of Appeal agreed with the submission. The court endorsed a statement of Peter Pain J in an earlier case:

It seems to us that it is impossible for a criminal trial to start without there being a valid indictment to which the defendant can plead, and that the bill of indictment does not become an indictment until it is signed”.

In Ireland the relevant legislation is the Criminal Justice (Administration) Act 1924. It mandates the form of the indictment in the Act and in the First Schedule to the Act. The choice of indictment is limited to the charges expressed or implied in the documents known as the “Book of Evidenceâ€? served on the accused.

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The sequel to the Book of Evidence

It is currently unchallenged, in Ireland, that an accused person is entitled to access to the evidence, prior to trial, that the State intends to adduce against him/her at trial. In Ireland, for many years, the procedure to secure that entitlement for the accused was set out in the Criminal Procedure Act 1967. That Act conferred a role on the District Court, in indictable cases, in deciding whether to send a person forward for trial to the Circuit Court or […]

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Shoplifting

The current Irish law on “shoplifting” is to be found in Section 8 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001. The side note for the Section descriptively reads “Making off without payingâ€?.

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I have in my hand a piece of paper

This section is, of course, of immense benefit to a prosecutor. It permits the proof of two matters in one fell swoop, each of which, if required to be proved in some other fashion would generate multiple occasions or opportunities for the prosecutor to slip on the proverbial banana skin.

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