Pleading Not Guilty in the Magistrates’ Court Melbourne Victoria
Depending on how serious your charges are, your matter will either finalise in the Infringements Court, Magistrates’ Court, County Court or Supreme Court.
All criminal matters begin in the Magistrates’ Court. The less serious matters (either summary offences or indictable offences that can be heard summarily) will be completely determined in the Magistrates’ Court.
See here for more on the procedure for indictable offences (more serious crimes). Alternatively, see here for more on how to determine which charges will be heard summarily and which charges will be heard in the indictable stream. To plead not guilty in the Magistrates’ Court means that, in most circumstances, the matter will eventually end up at a contested hearing. To get to a contested hearing a number of preliminary hearings must occur.
Related Information
Step 1: Obtaining the evidence
The first step before attending court is to obtain the evidence. As lawyers, we routinely obtain evidence from the police. In summary jurisdiction, the evidence brief is called the police brief.
Once we have received the police brief of evidence, we look through it to see if anything is missing.
Following receipt of all the evidence, we then take instructions from you, the client.
If your instructions are that you are pleading not guilty we can then consider the likelihood that we will be able to successfully defend your case and advise you of the same.
Step 2: Case conference or contest mention
From there, we must attend court. The first preliminary court hearing is called a case conference.
A case conference can occur at the first court listing or following a number of adjournments, but it must occur before the matter can be advanced.
At a case conference, negotiations begin between the defence and the prosecution. The defence can encourage the prosecution to withdraw the charges. If the defence and prosecution cannot agree, the matter will either proceed to a further case conference, a contest mention or a contested hearing. The instruction to the Magistrate at all times will be that the matter is proceeding by way of a not guilty plea.
A further case conference might be necessary for police to consider their position or simply to allow time for further materials to be provided to defence. Whether the matter proceeds to a contest mention or a further case conference is an important consideration and really depends on the type of matter. A contest mention will have a prosecutor assigned and will usually entail more robust discussions between the defence and the prosecution.
From a contest mention, the matter will proceed to a further contest mention if necessary or to a contested hearing, where the matter will be determined, and a not guilty plea formally entered.
Step 3: Contested hearing in the Magistrates’ Court
At a contested hearing, the defence will have the opportunity to cross-examine all prosecution witnesses and call any witnesses deemed relevant to the defence.
This is why the preliminary hearings are so important. They are our opportunity to obtain all the information we can about the witnesses, which we then use to cross-examine them. The purpose of cross-examination is to examine a witness using multiple sources of information to discover any inconsistencies in what the witness is saying that, in turn, should create doubt in the mind of the Magistrate hearing the matter.
The reality is that most of our victories have occurred well before the actual contested hearing, either by narrowing the issues, obtaining further materials, or both.
See here if you are interested in pleading not guilty in the County & Supreme Courts.
If you intend to plead not guilty, it is important that you engage experienced lawyers to ensure that you give yourself the very best chance of being found not guilty.
Dribbin & Brown Criminal Lawyers have handled hundreds of contested hearings in the Magistrates’ Court. If you are pleading not guilty in a criminal matter, call our office today.