Speaker 1: The public has had a long held fascination with detectives.
Speaker 1: Detective see a side of life the average persons never
Speaker 1: exposed her. I spent thirty four years as a cop.
Speaker 1: For twenty five of those years I was catching killers.
Speaker 1: That's what I did for a living. I was a
Speaker 1: homicide detective. I'm no longer just interviewing bad guys. Instead,
Speaker 1: I'm taking the public into the world in which I operated.
Speaker 1: The guests I talk to each week have amazing stories
Speaker 1: from all sides of the law. The interviews are raw
Speaker 1: and honest, just like the people I talk to. Some
Speaker 1: of the content and language might be confronting. That's because
Speaker 1: no one who comes into contact with crime is left unchanged.
Speaker 1: Join me now as I take you into this world.
Speaker 1: In part two of my chat with former criminal barrister
Speaker 1: Due for Them, Judith continued to entertain me with stories
Speaker 1: from the bar table. Judith also took us inside the
Speaker 1: jury room, and some of the things you said might
Speaker 1: make your question whether the jury system has had its
Speaker 1: We also found out how Judith defended a client accused
Speaker 1: of stabbing the person, a case that she thought was
Speaker 1: impossible to win, And we had discussion about forensic science
Speaker 1: in the criminal justice system. This was a really unfiltered
Speaker 1: look at the justice system. I think you're going to
Speaker 1: enjoy it as much as I did. Judith for them.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part two of I Catch Killers.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me back. After the first first part.
Speaker 1: We considered that we had a discussion off Mike and
Speaker 1: we said no, we'll let you back for the second part.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you about you winning the unwinnable case,
Speaker 1: and the way you described it to me was you're
Speaker 1: perfect that you're representing a client that had gone into
Speaker 1: a room and got into a fight with the person
Speaker 1: in the room. The person hadn't been stabbed when your
Speaker 1: client walked in the room, and when your client walked out,
Speaker 1: the person had been stabbed in the back, in the back.
Speaker 2: Take it take and you can't stab yourself back by
Speaker 2: the way, I have one trials where we ran the defense.
Speaker 2: He cut his own throat and that's been successful. But
Speaker 2: you can't do his stab himself in the back. It's
Speaker 2: just not going to work. This is a client who
Speaker 2: came in to see me late in the day, and
Speaker 2: she won't mind if she's still around, she won't mind
Speaker 2: being identified. I know, because this may identify to someone
Speaker 2: who actually knows her, but she won't have a problem
Speaker 2: with it. She came in and she walked into my office,
Speaker 2: and I'm sorry, but she wasn't very well dressed. There's
Speaker 2: a reason that I say that she's looking pretty daggy.
Speaker 2: And she'd been a gem FOSSi or opal prospector in
Speaker 2: an outback town where they have gems and opals there,
Speaker 2: trying not to identify things. But she was a transsexual.
Speaker 2: And sadly, because many trans sexual clients I've had have
Speaker 2: got wonderful dress sense, she was standing behind the door
Speaker 2: when dress sense was being handed out, as my mother
Speaker 2: would have said. And so she came in looking pretty daggy,
Speaker 2: with terrible taste in makeup and clothes and everything. But
Speaker 2: she was very upset, and she came in and she said,
Speaker 2: I don't want to go to a men's prison. I said, well,
Speaker 2: how about stop a minute. How about you tell me
Speaker 2: what you're supposed to have done or what you haven't done.
Speaker 2: Is how I often opened an interview with a client.
Speaker 2: Tell me what you haven't done, tell me what they
Speaker 2: reckon you've done. So I just don't want to go
Speaker 2: to a men's prison. When I get convicted. I said, well,
Speaker 2: let's just see if you're going to get convicted first.
Speaker 2: And as time went on, I was starting to agree
Speaker 2: that she would get convicted because what had happened the
Speaker 2: background of the story was that she'd collected a whole
Speaker 2: lot of gems in her prospecting days. And by the way,
Speaker 2: she had to be pretty tough, because if you're going
Speaker 2: to be in an back town like that as a prospector,
Speaker 2: it's a pretty rough and tough, blokey sort of a world.
Speaker 2: So she was pretty handy with a fist, had to be.
Speaker 2: And she was big too, she was probably six foot
Speaker 2: three and quite solidly built. Now she'd got all these
Speaker 2: gems and she'd come to Perth to and she'd made
Speaker 2: these dreadful souvenirs. I'm sorry, if you're listening, I'm sorry
Speaker 2: I called your souvenirs dreadful, but they were. She'd made
Speaker 2: these Jarrah maps of Australia, varnished them. And what you
Speaker 2: do is you Arrol died on a precious stone where
Speaker 2: each state capital is in the leaf TASMANI you're off
Speaker 2: because that's just too darn hard. You can't do that,
Speaker 2: and you flog them as souvenirs and you make money.
Speaker 2: And she was going to make money for her gender
Speaker 2: reassignment surgery. You can't. It's not sex change. It's a
Speaker 2: gender reassignment because you're being assigned the gender that you've
Speaker 2: always felt you were. Okay, And she went to a
Speaker 2: fairly cheap boarding house in Perth with all her Jerrem
Speaker 2: maps of Australia, and she met this young man who
Speaker 2: was quite personable, and he said, I'll sell them for you.
Speaker 2: You know, I reckon, I get about thirty five thousand
Speaker 2: dollars worth of this lot or whatever the amount was.
Speaker 2: And great, she is impressed by him. Okay, you take
Speaker 2: them and you sell them. And he came back later on.
Speaker 2: I think he only had about fifteen hundred dollars and
Speaker 2: all the maps are gone, and it's like, where's me money?
Speaker 2: Her money was probably up his arm. I suspect, you know,
Speaker 2: it was in the days of Heroin. I to remember
Speaker 2: where he would have injected and bought injected himself and
Speaker 2: blown a lot of the money and brought back what
Speaker 2: was left. And she was pretty angry, and they had
Speaker 2: they had a real, really intense argument about this in
Speaker 2: the sort of lounge area of this boarding house, and
Speaker 2: it evolved into a fistfight. And as I said, my
Speaker 2: client was, you know, really could handle herself in that situation.
Speaker 2: She wasn't charged with thumping him, though, she charged with
Speaker 2: stabbing him because although there were only two people in
Speaker 2: the room, him and her, and he didn't have a
Speaker 2: stab wound when he entered the room, and he did
Speaker 2: at the end of the altercation, and no one else
Speaker 2: had come in. I asked her all of this, did
Speaker 2: anyone come in?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Did he have a stab wound when he came into
Speaker 2: the room. No, did he have one at the end? Yes?
Speaker 2: Did you stab him?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I'm going I actually went read my lips. I cannot
Speaker 2: win this trial. You are going to have to plead guilty.
Speaker 2: I mean, she's sort of an answer to how do
Speaker 2: you defend someone you know they're guilty. I tell them
Speaker 2: to plead guilty. I tell them they're insane. If they don't,
Speaker 2: I don't care. I didn't do it. How do you
Speaker 2: get the stab wound? I don't know. Oh, you know,
Speaker 2: read my lips again. I still didn't know how I
Speaker 2: was going to win the trial, but she insisted on
Speaker 2: going to trial. In fact, her main question was what
Speaker 2: do I wear? She said, well, I come secretary, Will
Speaker 2: I come astronaut? And I said, well, come secretary. That
Speaker 2: was a mistake. I should have said astronaut, because yeah,
Speaker 2: she I seem to remember she was wearing blue sparkles
Speaker 2: and white gloves. I could be wrong, but astronaut would
Speaker 2: have been worse, I guess, because it would have been
Speaker 2: a silver lama.
Speaker 1: But anyhow would have made a statement.
Speaker 2: So I'm at the beginning of the trial and how
Speaker 2: am I going to defend her? And I'm looking at
Speaker 2: the crime scene photos again, just as you do, going
Speaker 2: through everything you've got. And it dawned on me, dawned
Speaker 2: on me, and thank Heaven's it dawned on me before
Speaker 2: the trial and not after, because I could never forgiven myself.
Speaker 2: There were some stairs leading from this room, and no,
Speaker 2: it wasn't that. Somebody came down the stairs with stairs
Speaker 2: leading from this room upstairs to the kitchen, and I
Speaker 2: said to her, I said, where did the stairs go
Speaker 2: out of the kitchen. There was a plastic bag on
Speaker 2: the stairs, just like a Wooly's bag or a coal's bag,
Speaker 2: something like that. And the bag looked like it had
Speaker 2: been damnag. I had, you know, had they made of
Speaker 2: not great plastic? And I had like a split in
Speaker 2: the bag. I said, whose bags? That shit, that's mine?
Speaker 2: I said, well, what was in it? She said it
Speaker 2: was me dinner. I was going to go upstairs the
Speaker 2: kitchen cook me dinner. I said, so what was in it?
Speaker 2: She oh, you know, me bread and you know, butter
Speaker 2: or margarine or whatever, and misteak and me fork and
Speaker 2: me knife knife, and there's a split in the bag.
Speaker 2: I worked out what had happened. They'd had a punch up.
Speaker 2: He'd fallen back on the stairs. The knife was in
Speaker 2: the bag at such an angle that he actually fell
Speaker 2: on the knife. The defense was he fell on the knife.
Speaker 2: Luckily he only had one stab wound, because you're not
Speaker 2: going to be able to run. He fell on the knife,
Speaker 2: got up, ran backwards and fell on the knife four
Speaker 2: more times.
Speaker 1: But well, that would have been a hard one to acplain.
Speaker 1: So how did that play out at the trial? Did
Speaker 1: the trial commence?
Speaker 2: The trial commenced, and she gave her evidence, and we
Speaker 2: explained to the jury why she looked the way she did,
Speaker 2: because they would have been wondering. And she gave not
Speaker 2: the explanation weed rehearsed, but another explanation I said to
Speaker 2: her because we had to explain what the money was
Speaker 2: for and why she was so upset, you see, So
Speaker 2: it was actually an essentral part of the background. So
Speaker 2: I said, you know, what was the money for? Why
Speaker 2: were you so angry? Because she admitted hitting him? You know,
Speaker 2: she wasn't charged with hitting and she was charged with
Speaker 2: something called unlawful wounding. I probably should have said that
Speaker 2: which involves stabbing, so she wasn't charged with punching him.
Speaker 2: So why were you so angry? He stole me money?
Speaker 2: And what was your money for? It was for me
Speaker 2: my operation, and what was your operation for? It was
Speaker 2: for me, you know, gender reassignment surgery, and what was
Speaker 2: that for? And she was supposed to say, was to
Speaker 2: make me look more feminine? In fact, she was supposed
Speaker 2: to I was going to ask a leading question. I
Speaker 2: was going to say, was it to make you look
Speaker 2: more feminine? Which is technically a leading question, But no
Speaker 2: one was going to object, So I knew I could
Speaker 2: get away by asking it was it to make you
Speaker 2: look more feminine? But she forgot what she was supposed
Speaker 2: to say, So I said, was it to make you
Speaker 2: look more feminine. She said, Nah, it's just going to
Speaker 2: cut me dick and me balls off. Nothing's going to
Speaker 2: make me look more feminine. And I went, oh, you
Speaker 2: could have heard a pin drop. The judge glared at me,
Speaker 2: like this is all my fault instructing say that I
Speaker 2: hadn't at all.
Speaker 1: She was supposed to say no, but you instructed her
Speaker 1: to say what was appropriate or the one but you can't. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It makes for court It makes for court room drama. Yeah,
Speaker 1: things like I reckon.
Speaker 2: My little theory is that the jury thought no one
Speaker 2: could give an answer like that not be telling the truth.
Speaker 2: I reckon it.
Speaker 1: Probably I've seen witnesses that come in there and or
Speaker 1: people involved in trials that they're too stupid to lie,
Speaker 1: like in the way that they're giving evidence. And that's
Speaker 1: sounding like I think I'm smart, but there are some
Speaker 1: people that are too stupid to lie. And like I
Speaker 1: would have legal people come to me and say, well,
Speaker 1: why do you think they're telling the truth. I don't
Speaker 1: think this person is capable of telling a lie. Sit down,
Speaker 1: have a chat and you'll.
Speaker 2: Understand and continuing the lie, you know, and getting away
Speaker 2: with it. You can tell stupid lies, but you'll get strung.
Speaker 2: You've got to have a certain degree of intelligence to
Speaker 2: carry the life through, would make it consistent with everything.
Speaker 1: Else and consistently keep backing.
Speaker 2: Anyway, this jury came back in seventeen minutes and acquitted
Speaker 2: her in seventeen minutes. I timed it high five. Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
Speaker 2: And she gave me a necklace which I've still got,
Speaker 2: made out of a crystal that she mined and arrol
Speaker 2: dieted into it into something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you wearing it? No?
Speaker 2: But I do still have no treasure.
Speaker 1: Okay, look, things like that. That makes a battler for
Speaker 1: a whole range of reasons. But little things like that
Speaker 1: make a difference. And you could have potentially missed that
Speaker 1: and lost that. So that must give you some sort
Speaker 1: of feeling of you doing doing good work.
Speaker 2: Well, I was really pleased, but you know, most of
Speaker 2: me was going, Thank Heavens. I noticed it before the trial,
Speaker 2: because you know, I've beat myself up about the things
Speaker 2: that I mess up, because honestly, she wasn't guilty. She
Speaker 2: absolutely he wasn't guilty, and she should have been acquitted,
Speaker 2: and I'm glad the jury did it so quickly. But
Speaker 2: it was almost an accident, and I don't like that.
Speaker 2: I don't like accidents.
Speaker 1: I don't like it coming coming down to the life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I want you to take me into the jury room now,
Speaker 1: and let's I think we touched on it in part
Speaker 1: one that generally jurors in this country are not allowed
Speaker 1: to speak about what goes on in the jury room.
Speaker 1: So it's a big mystery. The jurors are shielded from
Speaker 1: everyone involved in the trial, and they're boarding down the
Speaker 1: back alleys and they're not allowed to talk to anyone.
Speaker 1: So it's very rare that people working in this field
Speaker 1: get an opportunity to talk to juris. How did you
Speaker 1: come to get that opportunity?
Speaker 2: Again, accident? There seemed to be a lot of accidents
Speaker 2: happened in my life. I was doing a postgraduate degree
Speaker 2: in forensic science, as you do when you've got nothing
Speaker 2: better to do with your life, or you know, have
Speaker 2: so much free time, and I was invited to do
Speaker 2: a PhD.
Speaker 1: And it's the kids can look after themselves, don't worry
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 2: I'm fond of saying that mine thrived on neglect. And
Speaker 2: again it's sort of fairly sixth sense of humor.
Speaker 1: There you're topping them up for the life that.
Speaker 2: Not one of my children has a criminal record. So
Speaker 2: I call that a success.
Speaker 1: Or. You are a very very good barrasser.
Speaker 2: No, I call that an absolutely Anything better than that
Speaker 2: is a real win. But no criminal records anyhow, accident
Speaker 2: was what happened. You've got to do a PhD. And
Speaker 2: when I did my postgraduate work in forensic science, here
Speaker 2: was no such thing as forensic science for lawyers. I
Speaker 2: had to do a proper postgraduate science course. And honestly, yes,
Speaker 2: I had a science agree, but mine was biological sciences,
Speaker 2: and you know, I was having to learn forensic chemistry,
Speaker 2: chemistry I didn't do. Last time I did chemistry was
Speaker 2: at school and I wasn't very good at it. And
Speaker 2: that was yeah, yeah, So what am I going to
Speaker 2: do with PhD? And in forensic science? What on earth
Speaker 2: can I do? I don't actually know enough science. So
Speaker 2: jack of all trades, master of none was me. I know,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do expert evidence because that sort of
Speaker 2: straddles the worlds of law and crime. And I thought,
Speaker 2: I'm going to see whether I can talk to juris
Speaker 2: because we always wonder you were saying earlier in part one,
Speaker 2: you know, these juris sitting there, have the lawyers and
Speaker 2: the experts lost them? The lawyers and experts having their
Speaker 2: own learned conversation, the jurist sitting there going what happened?
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Have they forgotten about us? Because the juris just happened
Speaker 2: to be the most important people in the court room,
Speaker 2: and they get forgotten about. So I thought, I want
Speaker 2: to know what works. I want to know what type
Speaker 2: of communication works. How do they wrap their heads around it.
Speaker 2: Do they go out and do their own investigation, their
Speaker 2: own research, and we know that that's a complete no. No.
Speaker 2: You mustn't go out and do your own research and
Speaker 2: bring it back to the jury room. More that if
Speaker 2: you get found out, the trial will be aborted because
Speaker 2: you're supposed to only rely on what's presented in court.
Speaker 2: So I'm curious about how they handle expert evidence and
Speaker 2: the only way to do that because it is against
Speaker 2: the law to talk to juris after trials except with
Speaker 2: the permission of the Attorney General. So I went off
Speaker 2: to the Attorney General of the day and said I'd
Speaker 2: like to talk to juris and I'd like to find
Speaker 2: out about this, and he was very receptive and gave
Speaker 2: me that permission and it became a very very big study.
Speaker 2: In fact, I think it's the biggest study that's ever
Speaker 2: been done, certainly in Australia, UK, Canada, all the law
Speaker 2: systems that are very similar where you're not allowed to
Speaker 2: for example, you don't have the juris being interviewed on
Speaker 2: the court steps like they do in the US. And
Speaker 2: I had a lot of support to the law. Society
Speaker 2: was in support. The police actually gave some funding towards it.
Speaker 2: Legal Aid gave some funding, The Department of Justice funded
Speaker 2: the Sheriff's office cooperated with me and sent out three
Speaker 2: thousand questionnaires and yeah, and that way, you see, the
Speaker 2: juris could remain anonymous unless they opted into the study.
Speaker 2: So they just they sent them out. I didn't know
Speaker 2: who they were sending them out to except it was random.
Speaker 2: And then juriors opted in. And the amazing thing is
Speaker 2: it was a twenty four page questionnaire, not just tick
Speaker 2: a box. It was, you know, write down what happened
Speaker 2: here and what happened there, and you know, approximately a
Speaker 2: third of the juris actually completed that form and sent
Speaker 2: it back, which is an amazing response rate for a
Speaker 2: complicated form. And of those until the funding ran out,
Speaker 2: we interviewed something like five hundred of them and.
Speaker 1: So wow, that's a big cross that's.
Speaker 2: Huge, it's huge. In the process of that, obviously I
Speaker 2: learned a lot about what goes on behind closed doors.
Speaker 1: Take us there where you can, what goes on behind
Speaker 1: the juris okay.
Speaker 2: Well, one of the things that came up because it
Speaker 2: became not just expert evans, became a whole jury experience study.
Speaker 2: It grew and grew and grew. One of the things
Speaker 2: that I learned was, you know, people say, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: the jurors would have acquitted this person because he's evil
Speaker 2: and they're scared, and you know, it wasn't because there
Speaker 2: wasn't enough evidence. It's because they were scared of this
Speaker 2: bad dude. It was almost was in fact always, I
Speaker 2: didn't find one instance where a juror said, and they
Speaker 2: I do believe they're being honest with me. They had
Speaker 2: to opt in for starters where a juror said it
Speaker 2: was because I was scared of this bad dude, That's
Speaker 2: why I quitted him. No, it was because there were
Speaker 2: significant gaps of the prosecution case, and the prosecution was
Speaker 2: really lying on the fact that he's a bad dude
Speaker 2: to get a conviction, and the jurists took their oath
Speaker 2: seriously and would only convict if there was in fact
Speaker 2: enough evidence. Now that's a jury doing their job and
Speaker 2: doing it properly. It's sort of, you know, on a
Speaker 2: different topic which I'm sure probably end up touching on it.
Speaker 2: It's sort of why I can sleep at night believing
Speaker 2: that my client was a bad dude but he got
Speaker 2: acquitted because, as I said at the start of the thing,
Speaker 2: part of my job then was to keep the barsards honest.
Speaker 2: I did come across quite a lot of examples where
Speaker 2: the jurors actually went out and did their own investigations,
Speaker 2: which they're totally not allowed to do, and that was
Speaker 2: usually because they had questions that they wanted answered and
Speaker 2: neither side had given them the answer. Because, of course,
Speaker 2: a trial is about who presents what evidence on the day,
Speaker 2: and there might be good reasons why certain evidence is
Speaker 2: not being presented. For example, if someone has a really
Speaker 2: bad criminal record in things that are not logically to
Speaker 2: do with whatever they're accused of. This time. Often the
Speaker 2: jury won't be told about that because the theory being
Speaker 2: that they'll be influenced by that and convict him without
Speaker 2: the proper evidence. I actually don't believe that will happen.
Speaker 2: I do believe jurors do a really good job. I've
Speaker 2: learned generally. You know, you've got the occasional rogue jury,
Speaker 2: but again that's another story. But they have gone out
Speaker 2: and for example, gone to the scene of a chase
Speaker 2: or an you know, a traffic accident, or even a
Speaker 2: nightclub where something's supposed to have happened, and they will
Speaker 2: report back and tell the other jurors what they did,
Speaker 2: or had them conduct experiments where they've thrown things out
Speaker 2: of the window of a moving car to see how
Speaker 2: far away they land. Now, maybe we should have had
Speaker 2: something give that evidence so they're not tempted to do that.
Speaker 2: And no, I couldn't and didn't and wouldn't report that
Speaker 2: because everything they told me was confidential. And you can
Speaker 2: see I'm being very very careful not to give any
Speaker 2: identifying information about the particular trial.
Speaker 1: You talked about the past criminal history, and the jury
Speaker 1: not being given that because that might influence their decision.
Speaker 1: Us An example someone's been committed of an assault years
Speaker 1: ago and then being charged with drug related matters or
Speaker 1: whatever it could be. That is that going to influence
Speaker 1: the jury. I'm a big believer and we had this
Speaker 1: chat off Mike the other day that all the information
Speaker 1: that's kept from the jury, we put our faith in
Speaker 1: being judged by our twelve peers or whatever, and that's
Speaker 1: the basis of the jury system. I have concerns that
Speaker 1: not enough information is put to the jury and we
Speaker 1: don't put enough faith in the role of the jury
Speaker 1: to make informed decisions, like they're told not to. The
Speaker 1: only thing that they need to take into account in
Speaker 1: deciding guilt or innocence here is the information that's been
Speaker 1: presented to the court. They still get instructed not to Yeah.
Speaker 1: It used to don't watch the news tonight if it
Speaker 1: was a high profile case, don't read the papers, And
Speaker 1: they go, yeah, as if they're not watching the news
Speaker 1: or reading the papers about it. And now they're instructed
Speaker 1: not to look examine this on social media and different things,
Speaker 1: as if they're not not doing it. I think we've
Speaker 1: got to say there'll be reports in the media, don't
Speaker 1: put any weight on that. That's unsubstantiated information. What you
Speaker 1: need to do is concentrate on what we're presenting to
Speaker 1: you at court. We need to make the instructions more
Speaker 1: respectful to the role that the jury have.
Speaker 2: Well, if we're going to have a system that completely
Speaker 2: relies upon them, then we've got to have some trust
Speaker 2: in them. And as I said, most of my research
Speaker 2: uncovered the fact that they can generally be trusted and
Speaker 2: they will have argus in the jury room. No, you're
Speaker 2: not allowed to think about xyzz that you've learned, and
Speaker 2: you know what the media reports will be sensationalists might
Speaker 2: not necessarily be correct, and you know, we have to
Speaker 2: only take into account what's said in the jury room.
Speaker 2: And remember I said in part one about this jury
Speaker 2: forty years ago, who said, we understand that there might
Speaker 2: be some new workout on what causes ulcers, but we
Speaker 2: weren't told about We wish we had been. Now that
Speaker 2: we were forced to convict, even though we didn't feel
Speaker 2: happy about doing it. So they will do as there
Speaker 2: are generally. But that leads me to another thing I learned,
Speaker 2: and that is that there are really two types of juries.
Speaker 2: There are evidence led juries and verdict led juries and
Speaker 2: the evidence led ones are the ones that produced the
Speaker 2: most satisfactory verdict. By satisfactory, I mean they've actually considered
Speaker 2: the evidence and come to a conclusion because the evidence
Speaker 2: takes them there. I'll just explain that a bit. You
Speaker 2: get the sort that will go into the jury room.
Speaker 2: Someone has volunteered to be the four person for per offspring,
Speaker 2: for you know, in charge, or the communicator of the
Speaker 2: jury to the court, because that's really all they should
Speaker 2: be doing, and it will often be the person who
Speaker 2: really is they've seen on television. They just really want
Speaker 2: to be the important and they've got fixed views about
Speaker 2: what happened, and they're going to get this jury to
Speaker 2: do what they want. That's why I think four persons
Speaker 2: should not be chosen until a couple of days into
Speaker 2: the trial, and some judges do that. Now, some judges
Speaker 2: I think, have that point of view.
Speaker 1: Just a subtle change, but I think that's a worth
Speaker 1: wayle change because you could imagine the twelve people sitting
Speaker 1: down there and whoever thinks I'm smarter or quicker, bigger,
Speaker 1: I'm going to take control of this. And then you
Speaker 1: get that bully type or domineering type that will influence
Speaker 1: the other people. So okay, sorry I interrupted the judges
Speaker 1: and now I wake wake up to that that. Let's
Speaker 1: you don't need to pick it straight away. Just feel
Speaker 1: the dynamics of the group, dynamics of the room, and
Speaker 1: then work out who you think is best suited the Yeah.
Speaker 2: Particularly the longer trial. You've got the luxury to be
Speaker 2: able to do that. And I think it's a good
Speaker 2: idea as well. But a verdict driven jury not let
Speaker 2: verdict driven jury will be one where you know, the
Speaker 2: four person says right, Let's take a pher thinks he's guilty,
Speaker 2: who thinks he's not? All right? You know three of
Speaker 2: you think he's not, nine of us think he is.
Speaker 2: How can we pummel you through into submission? How can
Speaker 2: we make you see our point of view? What's your problem?
Speaker 2: And that sort of thing will happen. And I've heard
Speaker 2: tales of jurors lying on the floor crying because of
Speaker 2: the amount of bullying. Now that you have to say,
Speaker 2: if there's a verdict of guilty after that sort of treatment,
Speaker 2: that's not satisfactory. And no, I measured it by asking
Speaker 2: jurors whether there was anything that happened that influence devote
Speaker 2: a certain way, which they later regretted in the cold
Speaker 2: light of day if you like. Now that's your verdict driven,
Speaker 2: and that has to be in anyone's book, unsatisfactory and
Speaker 2: not necessarily going to do justice. Then you've got your
Speaker 2: evidence led where people say, right, okay, we've been told
Speaker 2: what pieces the prosecution has to prove, what the elements
Speaker 2: of the offense are, what things they have to prove.
Speaker 2: Let's look at each one, what evidence we've got that
Speaker 2: relates to that pro and con you know, what did
Speaker 2: this witness say? What did that witness say? And go
Speaker 2: through it carefully and thoroughly, and they find sometimes even
Speaker 2: though for example, their sympathies might have been with the
Speaker 2: victim or their sympathies might have been with the accused,
Speaker 2: the verdict the evidence takes them to a particular conclusion
Speaker 2: that's got to be far more satisfactory. So one of
Speaker 2: my recommendations, if I hadn't had publication stopped by a
Speaker 2: change of government, one of my recommendations was going to
Speaker 2: be that there ought to be a facilitator in the
Speaker 2: jury room, someone who's just experienced at holding meetings, if
Speaker 2: you like, and getting people to some sort of agreement.
Speaker 1: This is going to say shallow when I say this,
Speaker 1: and I was thinking as you were talking describing it,
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to say facilitator, but I was thinking
Speaker 1: that exact thing, that if you had someone there that
Speaker 1: could just keep them all in line, and that have
Speaker 1: to be the right person with the right personality, just
Speaker 1: explaining what the role is there, because I could see
Speaker 1: a group of twelve people going off in completely the
Speaker 1: wrong direction. So what you're saying, facilitator, I think that
Speaker 1: you're on the something there that would give me more
Speaker 1: confidence that they're doing what they should be doing in
Speaker 1: that room, because I think too much is ass of
Speaker 1: jurists because I sit there on cases I might have
Speaker 1: worked on for years and sit there and I'm getting
Speaker 1: confused as the legal argument's going. I'm sitting there going
Speaker 1: I'm getting lost on this, and I'm thinking these people
Speaker 1: have just come into it. I've lived and proved it
Speaker 1: for months or years, understand and understand the broader picture.
Speaker 1: So I've got a better starting point. You've got these
Speaker 1: people that get this sanitized version of information. They're asked
Speaker 1: to leave the court. Why of why the is going on?
Speaker 1: There's a legal argument in the absence of the jury
Speaker 1: and they must be seeing there going what are they
Speaker 1: talking about? Then coming back in and not being informed
Speaker 1: of what was discussed other than a look at something
Speaker 1: that wasn't relevant to your role here. We're sorry that
Speaker 1: we're asking you to leave the court. But because you
Speaker 1: now leave the court and they sit in the jury
Speaker 1: room for three hours probably guessing what are they annassis?
Speaker 2: I can telle you from my watch that they are
Speaker 2: guessing that and their offender as well. Why are we
Speaker 2: not trusted? Why do we you know, they think we're children,
Speaker 2: They think we can't actually, you know, sort things out. Also,
Speaker 2: it used to be not need more, Thank Heavens that
Speaker 2: jurors are even told not to take notes. Now they
Speaker 2: can take notes, and some judges will allow them to
Speaker 2: have copies of the transcript, in other words, the typed
Speaker 2: up version of what's said in court. Why should it
Speaker 2: be a memory test? Why should the person who misremembers
Speaker 2: something holds sway in the jury. Why should it be
Speaker 2: just the person who took notes that you know, is
Speaker 2: the one who has more influence because they've got notes.
Speaker 2: They only took notes of what mattered to them. So
Speaker 2: access to transcript and people say oh, they'll just get
Speaker 2: bogged down or you know, well, how about putting a
Speaker 2: bit of faith in them and if they want to
Speaker 2: check something, rather than having to come back into court,
Speaker 2: which is what often happens to have transcript read to them,
Speaker 2: why shouldn't they have it searchable on a computer in
Speaker 2: the jury room and look it up for themselves.
Speaker 1: Well, I think it's evolving and changing with the times,
Speaker 1: and definitely it should be something because the jury system
Speaker 1: is Yeah, the lineage goes back hundreds of years. The
Speaker 1: world has changed, and it used to be we'll call
Speaker 1: the jury from the village because you're going to be
Speaker 1: judged by your peers. But it doesn't sort of really
Speaker 1: sit that way anymore. There's a whole sections men.
Speaker 2: In fact, only that women could be on juries.
Speaker 1: When did they I didn't realize they let women in
Speaker 1: the juries. When did that happen?
Speaker 2: You're asleep? Gary?
Speaker 1: All right, Well that's yeah. When did that come? When
Speaker 1: did that come? When did it was it twelve men?
Speaker 1: How long ago was that?
Speaker 2: I don't actually know, to be honest, which is embarrassing,
Speaker 2: but you know, back in the thirties, for example, it
Speaker 2: was always just men. I don't know when it actually changed.
Speaker 2: But don't forget that women couldn't vote at one point.
Speaker 2: And we only get to know the person's occupation, and
Speaker 2: you know very little other than that their occupation, the
Speaker 2: suburb they live in, unless that's changed, and you know
Speaker 2: very little else. And all you could do is to say, well,
Speaker 2: I guess if you're defending a bank robber, you wouldn't
Speaker 2: want a bank manager on the jury. And it used
Speaker 2: to be you wouldn't put teachers on the jury because
Speaker 2: the theory was they'd be too judgmental. One other thing
Speaker 2: I've learned from my study is the more educated the person,
Speaker 2: the more useful they are as a juror. And you know,
Speaker 2: give me a teacher any day on a jury. Even
Speaker 2: though the received wisdom was you don't put them on juries.
Speaker 2: That's just probably due to people's bad experiences when they're
Speaker 2: at primary school or something. I suspect I don't see
Speaker 2: anything that's yeah. So you know, the more educated they are,
Speaker 2: the more able they are to indulge in that intellectual
Speaker 2: exercise of putting aside preconceived notions, of examining their thinking
Speaker 2: and being critical of their own thinking. And I mean
Speaker 2: critical in the good sense of the word.
Speaker 1: Do you think it would get to get to the
Speaker 1: stage where we're not having the jury trials, Like, I
Speaker 1: know there's options there. You can have a judge alone trial.
Speaker 1: Do you see evolving to the point where, look, this
Speaker 1: is all getting too complicated, forensic evidence, scientific evidence, even
Speaker 1: AI coming into play. Do you see the courts evolving?
Speaker 1: Will they keep up with the times?
Speaker 2: Look, I still think there's a strong ament in favor
Speaker 2: of having the appears. That's another question. But having a
Speaker 2: jury of twelve people who are not otherwise involved in
Speaker 2: the criminal justice system to actually judge this, because in
Speaker 2: the end, it's society that's punishing or acquitting somebody, and
Speaker 2: they're representatives of society. I think we need to get
Speaker 2: better about how we communicate information so that things don't
Speaker 2: get too complicated and the forms we presented in Should
Speaker 2: we be giving them visuals? Should we be giving them,
Speaker 2: you know, a graph? Should we be giving them pictures?
Speaker 2: Should we learn to communicate like I'm a great, wonderful scientist,
Speaker 2: and I can talk fancy language and I can use
Speaker 2: fancy terms and all my colleagues understand me. Or how
Speaker 2: am I going to present this to a jury? How
Speaker 2: am I going to explain this so they understand. And
Speaker 2: I firmly believe you can. I believe people can be
Speaker 2: trained not just to ask the right questions of them
Speaker 2: if you're the lawyer end of it, but as the
Speaker 2: expert to use the right language and to explain and
Speaker 2: to have you know, the lawyers help them explain it.
Speaker 2: So I think the answers in the training, and I
Speaker 2: don't think just having a jury of say three accountants
Speaker 2: in a you know, fraud case is the answer at all.
Speaker 2: And with judges, I mean, you can't pick which judge
Speaker 2: you get. Judges, I have to say the quality of
Speaker 2: judges is improving a lot a huge life over my career.
Speaker 2: But you know, back in the olden days, I would
Speaker 2: be very nervous if I had a judge a line
Speaker 2: trial which judge I would get, because some judges you
Speaker 2: knew that they were going to convict.
Speaker 1: Some judges they had strong leanings one way the other,
Speaker 1: the type.
Speaker 2: Of and so you'd only go for the ability of
Speaker 2: judge A line trials a relatively recent innovation anyway, And
Speaker 2: I did it in the baby shaking case because at
Speaker 2: the time of the trial there was a lot of
Speaker 2: there was actually a public information campaign about don't shake
Speaker 2: your babies.
Speaker 1: Which okay, so that that could have played.
Speaker 2: That worried me, and I was glad that particular judge
Speaker 2: that we got was a thoughtful, you know, very fair judge.
Speaker 2: He may even recognize himself, but you know, I was
Speaker 2: very glad about that. Whereas I remember one particular judge.
Speaker 2: My client actually passed out in the dock because he
Speaker 2: was so drunk. That's after they found him and got
Speaker 2: him to court because he didn't turn up the first
Speaker 2: day because he's on a bender and he passed out,
Speaker 2: And I said, you're on you have to ask for
Speaker 2: a gernks. My client's sort of unconscious, and the judge
Speaker 2: ad miss ford them. He'll sober up and you can.
Speaker 2: As the day goes on, he can tell him what
Speaker 2: happened like that.
Speaker 1: You're not shocking me. But yeah, different different, I said
Speaker 1: to judge.
Speaker 2: Look, I've never been asked to justify. Did I thought
Speaker 2: there was some sort of rule that the accused had
Speaker 2: to be conscious.
Speaker 1: Well, anyway, I can imagine that, I can imagine that happened. There.
Speaker 1: Would you then a huge question? You don't have to
Speaker 1: dig into it too much. But we've got the adversarial system,
Speaker 1: which is not actually a search for the truth, it's
Speaker 1: proving the guilt or guilt or innocence. And then we've
Speaker 1: got the inquisitorial system, which is a search for the
Speaker 1: truth in basically finding out what happens. Some countries have
Speaker 1: that system in place. Do you think it's a better system,
Speaker 1: And it's a big question. I'd just be interested in
Speaker 1: your thoughts.
Speaker 2: We have that in the curenter's court, where the curenter
Speaker 2: can actually direct investigations and it is a search for
Speaker 2: the truth, and coroners especially trained to do that, and
Speaker 2: I think certainly from in the investigation of deaths where
Speaker 2: it's not an attempt to pin blame on someone or
Speaker 2: certainly shouldn't be. But other countries, I mean, I've been
Speaker 2: a member of the Law and Society Association where a
Speaker 2: lot of some of the work they do is on
Speaker 2: just the systems, and you compare systems in different countries.
Speaker 2: So I'm actually in a position or I do have
Speaker 2: some views about that. And one of the issues with
Speaker 2: the inquisitorial system. And one inquisitor, if you like, one
Speaker 2: inquisitorial literally means questioning. You have one person doing that
Speaker 2: is that they can be liable and have been in
Speaker 2: some countries to for example, bribery or option because it's
Speaker 2: just one person. Also, some people are better at the
Speaker 2: job than others, and some people are better. You know,
Speaker 2: if you're acting as judge and jury, which is really
Speaker 2: what it amounts to, you may have your preconceived ideas
Speaker 2: and you may In some countries judges are elected as well,
Speaker 2: and you want to be elected again next time round. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so there are all sorts of ways that system can
Speaker 2: go wrong as well, do we You know, I can't
Speaker 2: tell you whether one systems better than the other. We
Speaker 2: have what we have, and I take some comfort in
Speaker 2: the fact that at least society is represented. Did the
Speaker 2: judge who's doing the inquisition, who's doing the question, did
Speaker 2: they go to an expensive private school and never see
Speaker 2: real life after they left their private school? Did they
Speaker 2: live a sheltered life or were they beaten up by
Speaker 2: their bully of a father, Or do they go to
Speaker 2: and there have been cases of this, go to particular
Speaker 2: sex clubs where they can be vulnerable to blackmail if
Speaker 2: they don't come up with a certain verdict. Just because
Speaker 2: you've got a trained judge doesn't mean you're safe. And
Speaker 2: again I say the callity of judges today is so
Speaker 2: much better than some.
Speaker 1: Well, you brought up some very valid points there, because
Speaker 1: I often erase this with you informed people, just to
Speaker 1: try to get a sense of it. People that understand
Speaker 1: the systems, I get frustrated with their theserial system because
Speaker 1: quite often they don't think all the evidence is presented.
Speaker 1: I'd like to see more evidence presented. What you touched on,
Speaker 1: what you learned with your studies with the jury, they
Speaker 1: seem to be Yeah, why don't they trust us? They're
Speaker 1: putting us in such a powerful position, a position of responsibility,
Speaker 1: but they were not clever enough to absorb all the evidence.
Speaker 1: So yeah, maybe we've got the right system. It just
Speaker 1: needs some improvements and adjustments. And I love the thought
Speaker 1: of a facilitator in there keeping those juries on board.
Speaker 1: Because you mentioned something the other day without referencing the trial,
Speaker 1: but what the jury came out, because after all the
Speaker 1: evidence has been presented, if people aren't aware of that,
Speaker 1: then the juries are sent away to consider their verdict.
Speaker 1: And what was that one? After three days they came out?
Speaker 1: What was a question they asked?
Speaker 2: A murder trial? And it was actually a trial I
Speaker 2: was involved in as a lawyer. It wasn't one of
Speaker 2: my study ones. And the jury deliberate for three days.
Speaker 2: In fact, we're all just debating, do we give them
Speaker 2: more time? Are we ever going to get a verdict?
Speaker 2: You know? The lawyers and the judge were sort of
Speaker 2: looking at that question. And the jury is allowed to
Speaker 2: send questions out to the court, and often what happens always,
Speaker 2: except for this occasion, the judge and lawyers will agree
Speaker 2: as to what the answer should be to the jury
Speaker 2: particular question. And this jury came out after three days
Speaker 2: of deliberation said does the accused have to prove he
Speaker 2: didn't do it? And the judge didn't even bother consulting it.
Speaker 2: He just but we looked at each other in horror, thought,
Speaker 2: what we've been going on about for all of us?
Speaker 2: Prosecution will tell the jury because of the type of
Speaker 2: you know, you have to prove this beyond reasonable doubt.
Speaker 2: How can you if you're.
Speaker 1: A they've miss missed the whole point of it. Purpose.
Speaker 2: But I thought about it later and I thought, Nah,
Speaker 2: what's probably happened? And I thought about this after I
Speaker 2: did my research. What's probably happened is that there's some
Speaker 2: one duror who's been a complete idiot, who won't shut up,
Speaker 2: who will say, no, the accused god to prove he
Speaker 2: didn't do it, and he didn't prove he didn't do it,
Speaker 2: So I'm going to convict. Everyone else's saying no, no, no,
Speaker 2: it's not how it works. And in then they probably said, look,
Speaker 2: we'll settle it once and we'll go back to court.
Speaker 2: And as a judge, I hope that's what happened.
Speaker 1: How yeah, you would would like to think not the
Speaker 1: twelve of them seeing their debating that the fact that
Speaker 1: it's now in courts. It used to be unanimous decision,
Speaker 1: like all twelve jurors, but now there's some leeway for
Speaker 1: certain cases that it can be majority of a decision.
Speaker 1: I thought that was good because you only needed to
Speaker 1: have one drop kick on the jury, and it could
Speaker 1: just for whatever reason, they might just be a painful person,
Speaker 1: a disagreeable type person that's going to sit there and
Speaker 1: argue too the cows come home, regardless of what facts
Speaker 1: have been presented. I think that was a step in
Speaker 1: the right direction.
Speaker 2: It's not the case with homicides. It's still got to
Speaker 2: be unanimous and that's because the stakes are so high,
Speaker 2: and I think that's fair enough. But you can get
Speaker 2: a verdict of eleven one or ten to two now
Speaker 2: in many others. But this is another example of not
Speaker 2: trusting the jury. The jury is told your verdict has
Speaker 2: to be unanimous, and the lawyers and the judge of
Speaker 2: all their fingers crossed behind their backs because I know
Speaker 2: that if the jury is having trouble reaching verdict, they'll
Speaker 2: have actually be told it can be ten two or
Speaker 2: eleven one. Well, why not tell them that in the
Speaker 2: first place. And then you get the juries where a
Speaker 2: dura has been on a jury before and knows that,
Speaker 2: and they'll tell the other jurors, look, we can actually
Speaker 2: have a majority verdict. Well, why not tell them that
Speaker 2: in the first place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, give them the information that makes sense, that does
Speaker 1: make sense.
Speaker 2: And then it's shot out it's a turkey, who's you know,
Speaker 2: because the juries will say, we don't have taken any
Speaker 2: notes of you anyway, because it's just one of you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because the chances are getting twelve people selected randomly,
Speaker 1: and you're not going to get a drop kick or
Speaker 1: a turkey, as you say on that group, You're going
Speaker 1: to be pretty lucky. You've got to be pretty lucky.
Speaker 1: The studies that you've done is available to the public.
Speaker 1: Has it come out in any form?
Speaker 2: Yes and no. I've written several articles.
Speaker 1: No, it's either a yes answer or no. It can't
Speaker 1: be yes and no.
Speaker 2: It can watch me.
Speaker 1: Okay, I wish you taught me this trick when I
Speaker 1: was in the world.
Speaker 2: I have taught people that trick. I'll just digress and
Speaker 2: say I teach people. What you say is you turn
Speaker 2: to the If the lawyer's saying, I'm asking you the
Speaker 2: questions yes or no, yes or no, give me yes
Speaker 2: or no answer, what you do is you turn to
Speaker 2: the judge and you say you're on. If I were
Speaker 2: to give a yees or no answer, I would be
Speaker 2: in danger of misleading the jury. And a jury goes
Speaker 2: perfect and they'll never do that to you again.
Speaker 1: So perfect, perfect.
Speaker 2: So anyway, that was a digression. But now, what was
Speaker 2: the question again, counsel. That's the other thing. Half the
Speaker 2: time the lawyer's forgotten the question by then too.
Speaker 1: It was about the papers from your study into the juris.
Speaker 1: Of course, is viable to the.
Speaker 2: Is some is And you know what I'm actually first
Speaker 2: that you can just google and you find some of
Speaker 2: the publications. Also, if anybody is actually keen to find
Speaker 2: out about it, I'm actually perfect happy to be emailed
Speaker 2: about it, and you will find my email address if
Speaker 2: you just google me. So that's pretty easy. There's nothing
Speaker 2: private about my life or anything.
Speaker 1: Well, the fact that you've done the study like it
Speaker 1: was something that needed to be done. There's so much
Speaker 1: value in what was learnt from having access to people
Speaker 1: that were not normally given access to For anyone to
Speaker 1: do a study, it gives an understanding. So it makes sense.
Speaker 2: By so many bodies were on board with it and
Speaker 2: everybody wanted the results.
Speaker 1: Just one question, is this just a myth or a
Speaker 1: rumor that there was a jury personal and jury trying
Speaker 1: to use a Ouiji board to speak to the deceased
Speaker 1: in a trial that actually I saw that in.
Speaker 2: Some that's real and did actually happen. And what happened
Speaker 2: was the it was a murder trial. We seem to
Speaker 2: be talking about murders a lot, which is good. It
Speaker 2: was one of those circumstantial cases because one of the
Speaker 2: things that murders is usually the main witness is dead.
Speaker 2: In fact, invariably the main witness is dead, because that's
Speaker 2: why it's.
Speaker 1: A yeah, yeah, you usually need that pres but see.
Speaker 2: Again, dark sense of hum we're actually laughing about it anyway. Okay, people,
Speaker 2: we're a pair of sicos. Let's move on. So the
Speaker 2: juror thought, well, you know, there's two opposing stories and
Speaker 2: they both make sense. You know, this could have happened
Speaker 2: this way, could have happened that way. I know, we'll
Speaker 2: ask the deceased. And they brought the wag aboard into
Speaker 2: the jury room and they said about having a seance
Speaker 2: to try to communicate with the deceased. This was discovered
Speaker 2: and the and the appeal was successful.
Speaker 1: So yeah, well see now if we had your facilitator
Speaker 1: in there, that could have been that he could have
Speaker 1: or she could have sorted that one out and go no,
Speaker 1: we can't have a sance in the jury. That would
Speaker 1: never have happen. Not allowed, absolutely, But okay, bizarre. Look,
Speaker 1: there's a thousand more things that we could talk about.
Speaker 1: I want to make mention of your book about life,
Speaker 1: law and not Enough Shoes. How did you come up
Speaker 1: with the title of your book?
Speaker 2: Probably through being a girly criminal lawyer and dealing with
Speaker 2: all the things that came with being a girly criminal lawyer.
Speaker 2: And the thing is that shoes don't judge you. Shoes
Speaker 2: are non judgmental. You know, Shoes love you no matter what.
Speaker 2: And you know, sometimes I just took pleasure in the
Speaker 2: fact that I could be a girl doing a blokes
Speaker 2: job and I could still stay a girl. They haven't
Speaker 2: been dipped in blood, but.
Speaker 1: Right they look they rocket.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And also I got into trouble from a judge
Speaker 2: for wearing zebra striped shoes once in court because he
Speaker 2: said it was distracting the jury. I know who it
Speaker 2: was distracting, and it wasn't the jury, And I reckon
Speaker 2: black and white went with my lawyer's outfit anyway, So.
Speaker 1: You wear you go, girl, you wear that look. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of other stuff that I
Speaker 1: wanted to to speak to you about, but think we've
Speaker 1: only scratched the surface of some of the things you've
Speaker 1: seen and done. I was going to ask about cruising
Speaker 1: the world on the q E two entertaining guests. After
Speaker 1: sitting down with you for the podcast, I can see
Speaker 1: why you're invited on cruise ships as a speaker. Just
Speaker 1: tell us briefly about that. Experience, because that would be
Speaker 1: quite it's not the typical career path that a high
Speaker 1: profile barrister goes down. But the talking gig on.
Speaker 2: Cruising, well, again, it happened by accident, of course, and
Speaker 2: this seems to be a bit of a thing.
Speaker 1: I'm going to start to call you Forrest Gump. You
Speaker 1: know how he went through his life? Ok, how did
Speaker 1: this accident? How did this accident?
Speaker 2: I was actually on a cruise paying for it, and.
Speaker 1: There was this guy had too much to drink at
Speaker 1: the bar and then started talking and.
Speaker 2: Drink what seriously, And yes, you should apologize for that
Speaker 2: slur on my character. No, I was listening to one
Speaker 2: of their lecturers and he was terrible. He actually got
Speaker 2: the stuff to wheel a desk on the stage and
Speaker 2: then sat behind a desk and read from a stack
Speaker 2: of papers. It was awful. And see I'm carefully not
Speaker 2: saying which cruise line it was, but it was terrible,
Speaker 2: and I thought, anyone, not just me, anyone can do
Speaker 2: better than that. So I asked him how he got
Speaker 2: his gig, and he said, I've got an agent in
Speaker 2: Miami and they get me the gig. So I wrote
Speaker 2: to the agent and said, how about it, and you
Speaker 2: have to give a bit of outline of sorts of
Speaker 2: things you can talk about. So I gave them a
Speaker 2: bit of an outline, and of course CSI was all
Speaker 2: the rage and I could talk about forensics and crime
Speaker 2: and next thing I knew. My first gig actually was
Speaker 2: on the Queen Mary, and I went from there to
Speaker 2: all sorts of other cruise lines. And what happens is
Speaker 2: you go on these six star cruises. You don't have
Speaker 2: to pay, You're treated as a guest. You can take
Speaker 2: a friend, play cards. Right, No, you'd have to share
Speaker 2: a room with me. You won't want to do that.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and I have to talk about stuff I
Speaker 2: know about. But the other cool thing about is these
Speaker 2: audiences are usually quite well. No one's forcing them to
Speaker 2: go to lectures. They're choosing to, so they want to learn.
Speaker 2: They want to know about this stuff. And it's been
Speaker 2: some of my most satisfying teaching moments, because I've done
Speaker 2: a lot of teaching of my career. People will go
Speaker 2: out and say, you know, I'm thinking about things differently
Speaker 2: from now on. I have this thing called ABC. Assume nothing, believe,
Speaker 2: no one check everything they said, going to be more
Speaker 2: critical in a good sense of the word. We're not
Speaker 2: going to take what the media tells us at face value.
Speaker 2: We are going to ask questions. You know, we've learned
Speaker 2: a different way of thinking and that just gives me
Speaker 2: such joy.
Speaker 1: Well, what a great gig you got there, and I
Speaker 1: can imagine you would be very popular and entertaining for
Speaker 1: the people listening to your talk because I've got a
Speaker 1: sense of the way you tell a story from a
Speaker 1: sit down today. So I want to thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming on the podcast. How do people get
Speaker 1: your book?
Speaker 2: The only way now is you have to actually again
Speaker 2: google me, go to my website. You can order it
Speaker 2: there or flip me an email. It's out of print.
Speaker 2: That went to three print runs, I might add, and
Speaker 2: it wasn't Vanity published either, it had a real publisher,
Speaker 2: so it's.
Speaker 1: A real book.
Speaker 2: I am. So you can contact me and while stocks last,
Speaker 2: I can post the book or get it to people.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much, and I want to thank
Speaker 1: you for the work that you've done because I know
Speaker 1: having people who genuinely care in the legal in the
Speaker 1: justice system makes a difference from police of victims, everyone
Speaker 1: involved in it. And I can see your care and
Speaker 1: you're smart. You've got everything that people knew, and I
Speaker 1: can see why people were lucky to have you defending
Speaker 1: the move. They got into trouble. Well, if I do
Speaker 1: get over the w A a bit. If I get
Speaker 1: into trouble, I know who I'm calling. Not that I'm
Speaker 1: ever going to get into trouble again. I've had enough
Speaker 1: of that. I don't want to be in a court
Speaker 1: again at this stage. I look okay, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: No problem at all.
Speaker 1: Cheez