Julie-Anne Kincade: Law Association Vice-President on the Government's proposal to change the threshold for jury trials

The Law Association says changing the threshold for the right to a jury trial doesn't make sense.   

Currently a defendant can choose between a jury or a judge-alone trial in cases where the maximum penalty is two or more years in jail.  

The Government's seeking feedback on increasing this to three, five, or seven years, saying jury trials drive court delays.  

Law Association Vice-President Julie-Anne Kincade told Mike Hosking that right now in Auckland District Court you'll get a jury-trial faster than a judge alone trial.  

She says they need to be careful about using a blunt tool to try solve the problem. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Change, you could be coming around jury trials. Currently, if
you face charges that could see you in jail longer
than two years, you get to choose between the judge
or a jury. But the number of active jury trials
is through the roof and the length of the average
case is blown out. I'll give you the numbers in
the moment. But Law Association VP Julian Kincaid is will
this Julienne morning.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Good morning Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
In theory, if they change it, does that make sense
or not?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
No, it doesn't. And the first point to make is
that the statistics they're relying on are from between twenty
and eighteen and twenty twenty three, which includes two of
the COVID years, so make it undermines the value of
those statistics. And also there's been as everyone knows, an
increase in homicide cases, certainly in Auckland, and so the

(00:42):
High Court are not dealing with the drugs cases that
they would have dealt with some time ago, and the
District Court is having to cope with much longer multi
accused drug cases that would have that in the elder days,
would have been tried in the High Court. There's all
sorts of different levers going.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
On taking COVID years. I mean, I'm looking at the
average duration of the case from three to forty nine
days has gone up to four hundred and ninety eight
five hundred days to deal with the case. I mean,
if you take the COVID years, that would that be
dramatically different.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
I think so. And there's all sorts of different factors
that go into these things. Right now, it's an ALTI
in district court. In fact, you'll get a jury trial
faster than you'll get a judge alone trial. So we
need to be careful about using a blunt tool to
try and solve the problem. There's also been a lot
of work going on in the last couple of years,
since twenty twenty two on a what we call SEPET,

(01:33):
the Criminal Process Improvement Program. Lots of things have been
going on. Police prosecutions have had a large injection of CAT,
They've been able to harm more people. We're getting earlier disclosure.
We've got two prosecutors in court now, so we can
have constructive conversations with one of them whilst the other
one is carrying on with the court business and the
list court. So these are things that have just come

(01:54):
into play this year, and I think these are the
things that I'll have a huge impact on increasing those
which we all want. But I'm just saying, just be
careful about going back too far and looking at things
as they were, because they're already changes well underway that
are going to make an actual difference.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Appreciate your expertise. Julian Kincaid case see with us this morning.
Are so the two numbers the number of active jury trials,
she argues COVID, I get it. Number of active jury
trials has gone in the last six years from two
thousand to three and a half thousand, and as I say,
the average duration of a cass climb from three forty
nine to four ninety eight. For more from the Mic
Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
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