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Speaker 1: Change, you could be coming around jury trials. Currently, if

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Speaker 1: you face charges that could see you in jail longer

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Speaker 1: than two years, you get to choose between the judge

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Speaker 1: or a jury. But the number of active jury trials

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Speaker 1: is through the roof and the length of the average

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Speaker 1: case is blown out. I'll give you the numbers in

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Speaker 1: the moment. But Law Association VP Julian Kincaid is will

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Speaker 1: this Julienne morning.

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Speaker 2: Good morning Mike.

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Speaker 1: In theory, if they change it, does that make sense

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Speaker 1: or not?

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Speaker 2: No, it doesn't. And the first point to make is

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Speaker 2: that the statistics they're relying on are from between twenty

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Speaker 2: and eighteen and twenty twenty three, which includes two of

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Speaker 2: the COVID years, so make it undermines the value of

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Speaker 2: those statistics. And also there's been as everyone knows, an

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Speaker 2: increase in homicide cases, certainly in Auckland, and so the

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Speaker 2: High Court are not dealing with the drugs cases that

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Speaker 2: they would have dealt with some time ago, and the

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Speaker 2: District Court is having to cope with much longer multi

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Speaker 2: accused drug cases that would have that in the elder days,

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Speaker 2: would have been tried in the High Court. There's all

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Speaker 2: sorts of different levers going.

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Speaker 1: On taking COVID years. I mean, I'm looking at the

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Speaker 1: average duration of the case from three to forty nine

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Speaker 1: days has gone up to four hundred and ninety eight

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Speaker 1: five hundred days to deal with the case. I mean,

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Speaker 1: if you take the COVID years, that would that be

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Speaker 1: dramatically different.

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Speaker 2: I think so. And there's all sorts of different factors

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Speaker 2: that go into these things. Right now, it's an ALTI

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Speaker 2: in district court. In fact, you'll get a jury trial

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Speaker 2: faster than you'll get a judge alone trial. So we

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Speaker 2: need to be careful about using a blunt tool to

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Speaker 2: try and solve the problem. There's also been a lot

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Speaker 2: of work going on in the last couple of years,

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Speaker 2: since twenty twenty two on a what we call SEPET,

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Speaker 2: the Criminal Process Improvement Program. Lots of things have been

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Speaker 2: going on. Police prosecutions have had a large injection of CAT,

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Speaker 2: They've been able to harm more people. We're getting earlier disclosure.

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Speaker 2: We've got two prosecutors in court now, so we can

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Speaker 2: have constructive conversations with one of them whilst the other

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Speaker 2: one is carrying on with the court business and the

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Speaker 2: list court. So these are things that have just come

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Speaker 2: into play this year, and I think these are the

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Speaker 2: things that I'll have a huge impact on increasing those

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Speaker 2: which we all want. But I'm just saying, just be

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Speaker 2: careful about going back too far and looking at things

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Speaker 2: as they were, because they're already changes well underway that

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Speaker 2: are going to make an actual difference.

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Speaker 1: Appreciate your expertise. Julian Kincaid case see with us this morning.

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Speaker 1: Are so the two numbers the number of active jury trials,

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Speaker 1: she argues COVID, I get it. Number of active jury

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Speaker 1: trials has gone in the last six years from two

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Speaker 1: thousand to three and a half thousand, and as I say,

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Speaker 1: the average duration of a cass climb from three forty

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Speaker 1: nine to four ninety eight. For more from the Mic

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Speaker 1: Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks.

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Speaker 2: It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast

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Speaker 2: on iHeartRadio.