Draft


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into the legal system, before conducting their very first trial.
|| = = =The Legal Team...=
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Lawyer Mel
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Amy
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Jacob
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Tessa
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Aimee
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Alex
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Hugh
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Caitlin
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Source: http://www.gwu.edu ||
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The True Story of the Three Little Pigs
====In this session we looked at "The True story of the Three Little Pigs" written by Jon Scieszka which basically asserts that the wolf was framed! All he was trying to do was to borrow a cup of sugar to make a cake for his granny. Unfortunately he had a bad cold and some big sneezes at the wrong time managed to blow down the first two little pigs poorly constructed houses. The collapse of their homes killed the pigs instantly and not wanting to waste food, the wolf thought he was doing the right thing by eating them. By the time the Police arrived, the wolf was at the third little pigs house and he was arrested and taken to jail, where he writes his recount. This story raises some interesting questions:====

SESSION 2: The Licorice Allsort Legal System

 * ==[[image:lic1.jpg width="355" height="319" align="right"]]== || ==The New Zealand Legal System - not the most riveting topic for discussion!==

See here for the summary of our discussion.
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One exercise that we did during this session was to look at different examples of New Zealand legislation. Each student chose a piece of paper out of the hat which had the name of an Act and its purpose. Their task was to identify any key words that gave clues about what that piece of legislation was about. I was impressed by the students ability to wade through some very flowery legal language to get to the main point. Alex and Caitlin were particularly quick to articulate their understanding. We looked at legislation like the Biosecurity Act, Fair Trading Act, Animal Welfare Act etc and even learned that the Death Penalty was only abolished in New Zealand in 1989.

SESSION 3: Guilty Pleas
So, today our young lawyers were faced with their first REAL case. Mr Green (not his real name) was charged with assault after giving a man a kick in the backside at a Christmas function at the Tai Tapu golf course in Christchurch. Mr Green had become frustrated by the victim's annoying behaviour on the golf course, disturbing fixtures, making jokes and kicking the tee markers away. Regretfully Mr Green's actions caused the victim to collapse and he required emergency surgery for his injuries. The task for our young lawyers was to represent Mr Green on his guilty plea in the District Court. To do this, we had to work through the process of how to present a plea in mitigation. Our first step was to look at sentencing. What types of sentences can be given by a Judge? We learned about diversion, which is a bit like a "get out of jail free" card for minor offenses. We also learned that there are a wide range of community-based sentences such as community service, community programmes and periodic detention. Just imagine having to turn up for one day a week at a periodic detention centre and work for 10 hours without getting paid? Wait a minute, says Hugh... they don't get paid?!!

Next step, what is a plea in mitigation? It's basically information that will help the Court to understand the defendant's situation and encourage the Court to give them a less serious penalty. So, what can we say about Mr Green? We talked about the fact that he had co-operated with the Police and entered an early guilty plea. He was remorseful and was willing to pay reparation to the victim. He had a full-time job and no previous convictions. He did not mean to cause serious harm to the victim. All these factors we would include in our plea of mitigation. This week, Mel presented a plea of mitigation for Mr Green using the language of the Courtroom and asked the Judge to consider a discharge without conviction (like the real case). The group were all quite persuaded by Mr Green's plea of mitigation but like often happens in the real world, the case didn't go our way. The Judge said Mr Green had to accept the consequences of the injury being serious so his application for a discharge without conviction was dismissed and he was convicted and told to pay the victim $1000 reparation. Next week our young lawyers will each be given a real District Court case and asked to present their own plea in mitigation. We will compare their sentencing submissions with what the real Judge in each case decided!

Here is Mr Green's summary of facts and plea in mitigation plus some general information on sentencing and of mitigation.