George Pell and the Jury

“Thank heavens for the jury system . . . (loud applause) … it’s the protector of everyone in this country, from people who hold high office to every member of the community.”
       — Lionel Murphy, Labor politician and High Court judge, Canberra Times, April 29, 1986

Lionel Murphy was speaking in Sydney, outside the New South Wales Banco Court immediately after a jury had found him not guilty of attempting to pervert the course of justice. This was the conclusion of one of Australia’s great celebrity trials of the 1980s. Murphy, who had been Attorney-General in the Whitlam government, which appointed him to the High Court, had first faced trial in 1985 on two charges of trying, on behalf of a friend, to improperly influence a district court judge and a stipendiary magistrate. He was acquitted on one charge but found guilty on the other. He appealed and was retried in April 1986 when, after a brief deliberation, the jury found him not guilty.

At the time, I thought that…