Tag: name suppression

Open and shut cases: Execution and name suppression

It is disconcerting, in the course of eating a single breakfast muffin, to be confronted by polar opposites to the concept of open justice.

I begin my day with a quick survey of my emails, and I was alerted to a Substack commentary by David Harvey. I number the retired judge among my friends so, after a quick bite, I read his Halfling column.

It was devoted to executions and, in particular, to the forthcoming death by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, who murdered 13 people at a military base in Texas. Last week, the US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced the killing would be livestreamed on a public platform.

I was among the many who publicly expressed their outrage at the decision, which is fully endorsed by President Trump. I said on Facebook:

How, in the name of common decency, can the people of the United States continue to allow their once great country to continue its spiral into primitive savagery? I am disgusted beyond belief. New Zealand must treat the video in exactly the same way as it handled the terrorist’s video stream from the Christchurch mosque attacks. Viewing and retaining the material in this country should be deemed illegal.

David Harvey is a learned man, and he argued convincingly in his column that there was nothing in New Zealand law to prevent the execution being viewed live in this country because we lack a statute censoring something that does not yet exist. I do not doubt he is right: The New Zealand censor’s ban on the mosque attack footage was after it had been livestreamed. He went on to argue against the use of prior restraint, on the grounds that “it strikes at the heart of freedom of expression”.

I, too, have an aversion to the use of injunctions and as an editor spent a number of Friday nights fearing a call that might prevent publication of a lead story in the Weekend Herald (the call never came).

I won’t put words in David Harvey’s mouth, but I think it is fair to say that he subscribes to the C. Edwin Baker school of thinking on free-speech absolutism. Baker, an American First Amendment scholar who died in 2009, asserted that the responsibility for harmful speech lay not with the speaker but with the reactions of the recipients. In other words, we must take responsibility for our own actions after we (not the state, or the justice system) choose to receive information. The Halfling column made the point that people could choose not to view the livestreamed execution, and David Harvey would be among those who opted not be watching it.

There is much in Baker’s writing with which I agree, and I have four of his books on my bookshelf. However, on this point I disagree with him and with David Harvey. One of the nice things about friendship is that it is possible to disagree and remain friends.

I subscribe to a school of thought articulated by legal scholars such as Stanley Fish and Jeremy Waldron. Their concern is about the undermining of public good and the assurances that society will protect its most vulnerable. This extends, they say, to harmful communication (which includes images). They maintain that free speech is only one of a number of values that need to be balanced against each other within boundaries set by society. Continue reading “Open and shut cases: Execution and name suppression” →

Name suppression sends wrong messages

The irony in the lead story of last Friday’s New Zealand Herald was plain: One rich-lister was wrongly pilloried because another rich man tried to hide his wrong-doing.

Businessman and philanthropist Wayne Wright was the victim of a chatbot that proved that artificial intelligence is not always very intelligent.

Grok, the chatbot owned by Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), named Wright as the man found with 11775 objectionable files, including extreme child sexual abuse involving bestiality, pre-pubescent children and toddlers. The defendant was sentenced to two years and five months imprisonment. The court permanently suppressed the man’s name, his family’s name, and the name of his business. Grok had been asked to find his name and did so by scouring speculation on social media.

Wayne Wright was named, but he was not that man.

Understandably, Wright has now called on the offender to apply to the court to have suppression lifted. Customs is also considering an appeal against the permanent suppression. The Herald has stated categorically that Wright is not the offender but, of course, is prevented from naming the guilty man.

The episode is yet another example of the damage that may be wrought by the use of imperfect AI by unaccountable platforms, and of name suppression tarnishing the public’s perception of the courts. Continue reading “Name suppression sends wrong messages” →

Trans-Tasman imbalance in court suppression orders

We all see the merit in Justice’s blindfold that speaks of all being equal under the law, but isn’t it high time we re-examined the gag on her mouth? The number of court suppression orders is inordinately high.

That assessment is based on a comparison of suppression data collected by the New Zealand Herald and by the Melbourne newspaper The Age.

Data assembled by the Herald’s data editor Chris Knox and revealed in Shayne Currie’s Media Insider column on Saturday shows that name suppressions have risen by 47 per cent in the past decade and last year stood at 1616 orders. That represents 2.5 per cent of all people charged, up from 1.3 per cent a decade ago.

The fact that suppression has risen almost by half since 2014 was worrying enough, but what made Knox’s figures all the more disturbing was a story I had read in The Age a couple of weeks ago. Continue reading “Trans-Tasman imbalance in court suppression orders” →

Name suppression: Wallace’s wallet hid the truth

The end of the long and tortuous road to revealing multi-millionaire James Wallace as a convicted sex offender will be a tipping point.  It will be the final straw in a growing stack of calls for reform of a system that allows the rich to use court processes to hide from the public.

Suppression of Wallace’s name was finally lifted last week after he exhausted his last avenue of appeal – the Supreme Court – and the public learned he was the “prominent businessman” now serving a prison sentence of two years and four months for sexual offences against three young men.

Three of New Zealand’s metropolitan newspapers led their front pages with the news that he could be named. ‘Knighted arts patron named as sex offender’ said the New Zealand Herald, while the Waikato Times baldly declared ‘Predator’s name revealed’, and The Press disclosed Wallace was the ‘Jailed businessman behind restoration’ of an inner-Christchurch mansion.

Wallace, who was first charged in February 2017, used every avenue of appeal against conviction, sentence, and name suppression. Had our judicial system still allowed appeals to the Privy Council in London, he would doubtless have sought that avenue as well. He could afford the legal costs: The ‘rich-lister’ is said to be worth $165 million.

And, of course, the Covid pandemic – when court activity was reduced to a minimum – further stretched his period of anonymity. Continue reading “Name suppression: Wallace’s wallet hid the truth” →