after magistrate bezzani disqualified herself in november 2016, the six charges of posting bills/wilful damage were heard by magistrate gwynn on the 1st of march 2017.
with the first subvertisers international global action coming up on the 22nd-25th march, i was planning to immediately appeal if i received a jail sentence (and apply for appeal bail).
i had prepared written submissions using the “sudden or extraordinary emergency” (necessity) defence, here are those:
victoria police v magee 1st march 2017
and here is the audio from the court hearing :—
1st session:
2nd session (after lunch):
magistrate gwynn stood the matter down to read my submissions — she emerged after the lunch break to say my xtreeemly reasonable submissions were unreasonable, without explaining any way in which they were unreasonable.
i regret not pushing her to explain how they were unreasonable, but a combination of depression and pity prevented me — magistrate gwynn seemed uncomfortable, her voice wavered, and she didn’t look at me as she proceeded to officially invalidate my reason for being (that’s my raison d’être, for all the really smart wankars out there).
the absurdity of me being threatened with jail for a legitimate political protest i feel morally compelled to make, yet genuinely feeling as if it would be rude of me to thoroughly question the magistrates’ reasoning (or lack thereof) for rejecting my defence (and forcefully punishing me), is not lost on me.
at the very start of the hearing (about 20 seconds in), before i had entered the courtroom, magistrate gwynn said “i’ve done something very wrong to somebody somewhere”, the prosecutor probes “sorry?”, she replies quickly “nothing”, then the prosecutor laughs.
of course i can’t be completely sure, but i strongly suspect this means that magistrate gwynn has heard about my incessant terrorism of innocent magistrates (which isn’t completely surprising, i’m sure a lot of gossiping goes on inside the magistrates’ magic-cupboard world) — yet she continues the charade of asking if diversions have been considered, and to raise objection to me talking about my long term activism in my submissions, as if she has no knowledge of the case, and must protect her unsullied, pure and impartial mind.
toward the end of the 1st session (28 minute mark), magistrate gwynn asks me why i bother repeatedly coming to court and pleading not guilty (as if it is me that is bringing these charges to court, and not the police) — maybe i’m more jaded than than the average observer, but i interpret this as the magistrate asking me why i insist on being so rude: why don’t i just politely and meekly accept injustice being done on me? and declare that i gladly accept this injustice and think that the people doing it to me are just and honourable? — how dare i make magistrates feel in any way uncomfortable about their role by insisting on asserting my innocence and making good arguments to justify my behaviour?
magistrate gwynn ended up only convicting me of the posting bills charges (not the wilful damage charges) and fining me $100 for each charge ($600 total) — she also didn’t award restitution for the “cleaning” (which wasn’t proven by the prosecution, although that’s never been a problem for them in the past).
magistrate gwynn did leave jail hanging as a possibility for a long time, stating that her only options are a fine or jail (as i won’t co-operate with my punishment), and asking me to confirm that i won’t pay a fine — i thought i was likely to be sentenced to jail, but i still think i was less stressed than the magistrate.
before sentencing (at 16:40 in the second session) magistrate gwynn again questions my involvement in the legal system (as if my choice to act sanely makes me responsible for the predictably unreasonable response from the legal system), and we have an exchange that i feel like i have had around 1000 times (serious guesstimate) about my choice of action and how foolish it is of me to expose myself to our communities’ brutal ‘justice’ system (which is just a bunch of nice people who need to do their jobs after all).
if there’s anything worth listening to in this entire hearing, it’s me getting all emo about my broken heart and disappointed idealism (from 16:40 in the second session) — hahaha, stupid 1st worlders and their existential crises, boo hoo, maybe i should kill myself because my amazing rich-prick life is “really hard”, bahahahahaha.
magistrate gwynn ended (at 23:50) by saying she appreciated the submissions i made were “carefully crafted and well thought-out”, that it showed a lot of “time and effort” (wasting time and effort on something destined to amount to nothing apparently being seen as a virtue) — i don’t know what to make of any of this, i guess we are friends now?….
