An argument can be made that the law and society is practically inseparable, and that each exist because

of the other. It can be said that society and its values is the driving influence for the law, and inversely the law dictates the morals of society and accordingly enforces a level of control and order within it. This relationship is often the source of speculation of authors who undertake to explore various aspects of it. In doing so, they conduct research in to the relevant issue in a fitting way. The articles written by Sharyn Roach Anleu and Kathy Mack, and Liam Burke are two examples of this, where the respective authors employ various research techniques to establish and analyze the existing link between society and law in the context of their research.

Intersections Between In-Court Procedures and the Production of Guilty Pleas1 Sharyn Roach Anleu and Kathy Mack This article examines the guilty plea in Australias criminal justice system and its relationship with internal, or in-court events and external, out-of-court events. As stated by the article, it examines the early stages of in-court proceedings, in particular the ways in which the judicial officers decisions about adjournments, contribute to and are driven by the guilty plea production process. Essentially, the article explores the notion that the judicial officer, who has no knowledge of plea or charge bargaining, is capable of (perhaps inadvertently) producing a guilty plea through the way they handle the adjournment process. Current law in Australia dictates that judicial officers do not participate in plea negotiations or discussions in the interest of maintaining an image of neutrality, where the magistrate in no way impacts the plea of the accused so as not to appear to favour one particular outcome. A guilty plea in our criminal justice system must be voluntary on the part of the accused, and any intervention by

Sharon Roach Anleu and Kathy Mack, Intersections between In-Court Procedures and the Production of Guilty Pleas (2009) 42 Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology 1.

a magistrate has the potential to corrupt this voluntariness. The authors in the article seek to answer the question of whether magistrates are capable of transcending the barrier between internal and external proceedings to ultimately produce a guilty plea. The article states A court observation study conducted in the Australian magistrates courts indicates that the adjournment provides a critical intersection between formal court proceedings and the informal discussions, interactions and considerations that might produce guilty pleas. Accordingly, it becomes necessary the authors examine the adjournment process, as this is the critical intersection which provides the magistrate a means of communicating their opinion or intent.

In order for the authors to answer their questions, appropriate research was conducted. In this instance, they performed observational research in order to obtain a factual basis for their findings. The researchers observed 27 different magistrates in 30 different court sessions in 20 different locations, during which a total of 1287 matters were seen. According to the article, The reliability of the data collected is enhanced by repeated observations by two observers, over several different courts and the use of printed templates to ensure that the observers recorded similar information relating to the defendant, his/her offences, legal representation, aspects of the magistrates interaction, information for decisions and outcome, with space for additional comment. Further, transcripts for all proceedings with the exception of those in one jurisdiction were available to the researchers. Given this, it seems the research conducted was appropriate to the information they sought to obtain. It would be through the observation of the magistrate and their interaction with the accused the researchers could gather information on whether the magistrates actions could result in a guilty plea. Further, given the scope and quantity of research done it could be deemed sufficiently reliable. However, it should be noted that the researchers merely witnessing an 2

adjournment is not synonymous with a guilty plea being created through the adjournment and the ensuing interaction between internal and external court proceedings. For the most reliable results, the researchers could have attended the following hearings for adjourned proceedings and recorded to results, to determine whether the majority of these were in fact guilty pleas. Despite this, given the data, the authors of the article were able to use this to create statistical evidence for their argument, such as the finding that almost one third of all matters involved an adjournment, and the next highest decision was the guilty plea, which accounted for almost a quarter of all decisions, and given this an argument could be made that a large number of court proceedings result in at least one adjournment and will eventually lead to a guilty plea.

In conjunction with this evidence, the researchers were able to use the transcripts from the witnessed proceedings to further support their own claims. The ability to provide actual interactions between magistrate and defendant as a precedent for how such proceedings in a certain context could go was able to bolster their own argument in their ability to make evidentially supported generalizations. This was particularly relevant to the authors categorization of the four strategies employed by magistrates that potentially impact the production of guilty pleas, whether inadvertently or intentionally, where in each of the four strategies specific examples may be provided. Given the observational data the authors obtained, the conclusion drawn was that the formal in-court proceedings and informal out-ofcourt proceedings are not separate from each other, and that the critical point of intersection manifests as the adjournment, and it is at this crossover point the magistrate potentially influences the production of the guilty plea through the use of any of the four strategies analyzed in the article. Given the provided evidence, these conclusions appear reasonable and sufficiently supported. 3

The study conducted by Sharon Roach Anleu and Kathy Mack has implications beyond those easily identifiable. It allows for a broader observation of the relationship between the law within the confines of the judicial system and society, particularly the influence law has over society. We can see from their evidence not only that a guilty plea is a likely outcome of most cases, but also it is one that is pushed (perhaps unintentionally) by the magistrates. The idea that magistrates can influence the production of a guilty plea is well supported and must be considered accordingly. The process of criminal trial coupled with the tendency to produce a guilty plea ultimately should serve as a deterrent to crime, at least that on the lower spectrum of the criminal scale. It would appear the legal system has almost found a way around the rules imposed on judicial officers designed to enforce neutrality, but on consideration it becomes apparent that the guilty plea is likely obtained because the accused is, in fact, guilty, and the deterrent is to not oppose the system itself. Summarily, from the article it can be seen how the interactions that occur outside the courtroom in the context of a court proceeding are inseparable from the in-court events due to the way magistrates deal with adjournments and the guilty pleas.

One Punch Can Start Moral Panic: an Analysis of News Items About Fatal Assaults in Queensland Between 23 September 2006 and 28 February 20092 Liam Burke This article written by Burke examines the relationship between society and its morals, specifically the state of moral panic, and how such a social phenomenon can impact on the Australian legal system and whether this eventuates in a change to law. The main question
2

Liam Burke, One Punch Can Start Moral Panic: an Analysis of News Items About Fatal Assaults in Queensland Between 23 September 2006 and 28 February 2009 (2010) 10 QUT Law and Justice Journal 87.

addressed by Burke and the focal point for his research was what the impact of the fatal assaults in Queensland between September 2006 and February 2009 were, especially in light of the fatal assault of teenager Matthew Stanley, with the implications examined specifically relating to Queensland criminal law and process. Further, the author considers this context in regards of Stanley Cohens foundational study in to moral panic relating to the Mods and Rockers phenomenon due to the parallels able to be drawn from both that and the Queensland context and the responses in law.3 The article states that Cohens study ultimately serves to provide an understanding of how particular law and order responses are products of a reassertion of moral boundaries. Burke also considers the five elements of moral panic as defined by Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda in relation to the Queensland events in order to establish this period as one of moral panic.

In writing the article, the author conducted substantially extensive research in addressing the various ideas and questions presented. The main focal point of his article and hence the major product of his research was the consideration of the 90 news items published throughout the specified period relating to youth violence and fatal assault. Burke states the items considered ranged from articles, reports, briefs, opinions and letters. As this is written evidence which would reflect at least some opinions in the given context, such material would be ideal in establishing the societal views of the time, as opposed to other data such as observations which would be less reliable and subject to a less diverse bias. The author collected the news items spread over the specified period of time from a variety of sources instead of just one or two newspapers to ensure diversity in opinion. This collection of news articles also enabled Burke to create statistical evidence to effectively support his ideas and argument.

Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics (Routledge, 3rd ed, 2002) 1.

In conjunction with these articles, which can be seen to represent society in the article, he also considered statements issued by government organizations such as the Queensland Law Reform Commission to indicate the responses of government to the societal outcry. Further, he considered Stanley Cohens study of moral panic in the Mods and Rockers event in Britain to compare and contrast both the societal reaction to the events in Queensland and the government response.

In light of his findings, Burke concluded that the state of Queensland over the specified period, in accordance with Cohens study, was synonymous with the concept of moral panic, and that such moral panic was the result more of media attention and exaggeration and less related to the actual events that caused it. He further found that the Queensland Law Reform Commission acted in accordance with their prescribed duty and were justified in their recommendation against the abolition of the accident excuse and the introduction of an assault causing death offence. He concluded that the One Punch Can Kill campaign was in fact an appropriate response likely to yield positive results. Summarily, he concludes that instances of moral panic should be evaluated for their proportionality, emphasizing that legal government organizations shouldnt, and in this case didnt, fall to the pressure of the media and general societal desire and responded to the problem as it was without exaggeration.

The study conducted by Burke enables us to better understand the relationship between society and law, and the need for law to separate itself to an extent from society to avoid responding to societal pressure and reform for the sake of change, but whose proper task is change for the better. Within the article Burke states through its investigative role and consultations with the community, Law Reform Commissions placate those community 6

groups which rightly insist on having their say [and] ensures that when politicians receive the report proposing law reform, it has been put through a filter of argumentation. This serves to illustrate how the role of the law in society can be perceived as a sort of filter for change, where change does not occur for the sake of change but instead change occurs for the better, where whenever a justified reason exists for any law-enforced action it will be taken in accordance with the actual problem and not the problem inflated disproportionately by society and the media. However, at the same time it illustrates the limits of legal resolution to an essentially social problem, where the law must act accordingly to the problem and not unnecessarily excessively just for the sake of resolution.

The findings of Burke are capable of extending further beyond the confines of the context. Essentially his conclusions of the role of Law Reform Commissions is applicable to all LRCs in all situations and not merely confined to that of the moral panic in Queensland, and as such can be seen to serve as the precedent of response in Australia.

Conclusion Given the two texts, it can be seen how in both the authors conducted relevant research in their evaluation of a socio-legal issue. It is important to note how each uses an appropriate method of research; in the article of Roach Anleu and Mack, an observational data collection was appropriate and yielded applicable results that sufficiently illustrated the interaction between in-court and out-of-court proceedings in the production of a guilty plea, while Burke was able to contrast media representation of an event with the responses of government organizations in light of a relevant study outside the context of the issue to establish his view that an instance of moral panic was well established and that the relevant government organization responded in accordance with their prescribed duty. A comparison can also be 7

drawn in the way all authors were able to apply their research to support their argument in each article they were able to convert their research in to a statistical evidential base where necessary and otherwise used their findings to illustrate a point and support their own argument.

Also, each article is able to establish a connection between law and society, which should be of note. The article of Roach Anleu and Mack, as mentioned above, establishes the link between how the intersection of internal and external court proceedings produces in most cases a guilty plea, while Burkes article illustrates the need for the law and government to maintain a level of separation from society particularly in instances of moral panic, while concurrently responding to a need for change providing it is for the better.

BIBLIOGRAPHY A Articles/Books/Reports Anleu, Sharon Roach and Kathy Mack, Intersections between In-Court Procedures and the Production of Guilty Pleas (2009) 42 Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology 1 Burke, Liam, One Punch Can Start Moral Panic: an Analysis of News Items About Fatal Assaults in Queensland Between 23 September 2006 and 28 February 2009 (2010) 10 QUT Law and Justice Journal 87 Cohen, Stanley, Folk Devils and Moral Panics (Routledge, 3rd ed, 2001)