judge curtin

thebaz

is anyone else pissed off with the state (me and you) continuing to pay Judge Curtin salary as a judge , when he should be immediatly kicked out of the legal proffession . He is charged with obsene behaviour , and is obstructing justise on a technicality , and then suing the state for what he can get . He should be locked up himself, and shut up, or else he should allow the law enforcements see what is on his PC. If he has nothing to hide , why worry , and he can proove his innocence. The man is a disgrace, how we can allow him to continue as a judge in our state is inbelievable..

Rb

links?

The_Minister

The government can't do anything his pay is protected by the constitution

mountainyman

In order to protect Judges from political interference it is hard to sack them.
In order to protect people from searches the law interprets search warrants narrowly.

The 2 combined here.
Don't know why he is still alive to tell you the truth.

MM

aw

Obviously he is a disgrace.
There is no question that he is guilty. But since he wasn't proven of anything it's complicated.
Only the Government can fire a judge.
There has to be good reasons behind it too, ie a criminal prosecution.

They can't just fire him overnight. If they did they would leave the door open for him to sue and claim massive damages.

Also I find it laughable that he is trying to get the state to cover his legal expenses too.

jsr

mountainyman wrote:

In order to protect Judges from political interference it is hard to sack them.
In order to protect people from searches the law interprets search warrants narrowly.

The 2 combined here.

MM

That about sums it up. You may aswell close the thread now.

thebaz

does not make sense to me why a judge can't be sacked . If he is wrotten he is wrotten . if he is corrupt , he is corrupt . Sack him . Would you feal happy having him send you to jail for something trivial ? disgrace.

blah

I agree with everyone saying that he shouldn't still be a judge and receiving his salary. But it's important for there to be that distance between him and the government. They shouldn't be able to sack him on a whim. Otherwise we could easily end up in a situation where members of the goverment could influence the outcome of a trial if it suited them. A judge may not be so impartial if he was worried about losing his job so easily. So unfortunately we end it with the situation with Curtin, sickening as it is to watch.

jor el

He can't be sacked because he hasn't been proven to have done anything wrong. The minute we allow people to be punished outside of our legal system then the whole system fails.

bax wrote:

or else he should allow the law enforcements see what is on his PC

They already have it, they took it in the search of his home. The fact that the warrant was out of date inly came to light when the case went to court. It would not have gone to court without the evidence.

In all likelihood he is guilty, but he can't and shouldn't be punished without due process. Obviously they wouldn't have searched his home without the information coming from Interpol, this information was that his credit card was used to purchase child porn from a site in the US that was being operated by US officials in a sting operation. Now, just because his card was used doesn't mean he used it, so we can't assume he's guilty.

is anyone else pissed off with the state (me and you) continuing to pay Judge Curtin salary as a judge

And if you're going to be pissed with anyone it should be the Gardai. They fcuked up and performed an illegal search of his home. They should have either exercised the warrant in time, or got it extended.

If he is

The operative word being if. He's not an active judge at the moment anyway so he can't pass judgement on anyone for now.

Dave!

Is there no way to take common sense into account in a trial? I mean, a kiddy porn enthusiast is still free and EMPLOYED purely because a search warrant was out of date. The fact remains that the porn was there, it'd ridiculous that he's still free!

(EDIT: Yeh I know that there's more to the case, ie. was it a virus, but I mean that, the warrant was out of date, therefore the porn wasn't there)

But I suppose you have to be dogmatic when it comes to the law, or else there's no point.

Eoin

jor el wrote:

He can't be sacked because he hasn't been proven to have done anything wrong. The minute we allow people to be punished outside of our legal system then the whole system fails.

They already have it, they took it in the search of his home. The fact that the warrant was out of date inly came to light when the case went to court. It would not have gone to court without the evidence.

In all likelihood he is guilty, but he can't and shouldn't be punished without due process. Obviously they wouldn't have searched his home without the information coming from Interpol, this information was that his credit card was used to purchase child porn from a site in the US that was being operated by US officials in a sting operation. Now, just because his card was used doesn't mean he used it, so we can't assume he's guilty.


And if you're going to be pissed with anyone it should be the Gardai. They fcuked up and performed an illegal search of his home. They should have either exercised the warrant in time, or got it extended.


The operative word being if. He's not an active judge at the moment anyway so he can't pass judgement on anyone for now.

I agree with most of that, but the problem with the warrant was not a simple mistake by the Gardai, and possibly caused a legal precedent.

The law says that a warrant must be executed "within seven days from the date" of signing. As I understand it, the Gardai took this to mean 168 hours (24 hours * 7 days), however the Judge took it to mean from the very start of the day it was issued. This is why it went to court - it was up to the prosecutors' office to bring the evidence to court. They also obviously thought that the warrant was legal, otherwise they may not have brought charges at all.

jor el

OK, my bad. But they still waited until the last few hours of (or what they thought was) the warrants validity period. Why the delay? It's good that the time distinction has now been clarified in court as it's a mistake that won't happen again, but it's a shame that it may be a kiddie porn enthusiast that'll get away because of it.

thebaz

the guy is obviously very smart, like most in the legal profession, and is abusing every legal loophole to keep his salary ,and his position in tact . The average punter in the country would not have his legal contacts or intellect, and would be whisked off to jail for said offences . As a taxpayer I object to paying for his high living , whilst he has no doubt acted abysmly - child porn ! . Sorry folks , just makes me mad !

shroomfox

I always felt sorry for him! He looked like an adorably sad little mouse on the news.

Of course, then I found out what he did. And verily, I disliked him.

Wertz

With all the vehemence directed toward paedophliia in this country of late (and rightly so), why oh why do so many of these high profile cases end up without actual jailtime...

The real joke with the Curtin case is that after the fact of whther there's pr0n on the HDD in his PC or not, the taxpayer is expected to foot the bill for his appeal AND to pay his hefty salary whilst he's suspended (?).
Am I right in saying that the PC is in posession of the state, but that it can't be searched without the owner's consent? If so, if the guy has nothing to hide then why is access to the images held on the HDD(s) not being granted; that in iteself suggests guilt...also this is a very convenient time for a technicality to crop up...bet your ass that 99% of the time, all the T's will be crossed and I's dotted in cases like these...
Justce system? Yeah right...

Sleepy

It's cases like this make you see the argument for totalitarianism tbh.

Atrocity

Ram the constitution up his bloated, privileged hole

oscarBravo

aw wrote:

There is no question that he is guilty.

There most certainly is a question.

aw wrote:

But since he wasn't proven of anything...

...he's technically innocent.

Remember the principle underlying the idea of "innocent until proven guilty": better that 100 guilty men walk free than that a single innocent man be punished.

Litcagral

bax wrote:

is anyone else pissed off with the state (me and you) continuing to pay Judge Curtin salary as a judge , when he should be immediatly kicked out of the legal proffession . He is charged with obsene behaviour , and is obstructing justise on a technicality , and then suing the state for what he can get . He should be locked up himself, and shut up, or else he should allow the law enforcements see what is on his PC. If he has nothing to hide , why worry , and he can proove his innocence. The man is a disgrace, how we can allow him to continue as a judge in our state is inbelievable..

Re " and he can proove (sic) his innocence"

One does not have to prove one's innocence. The prosecution must prove guilt. i.e. the burden of proof is on them. One is innocent until proven guilty. That is the bedrock of our legal system. It is irrevelant that you may disagree with that as that is the law as it stands.

Hotblack Desiato

It is very worrying that illegally seized evidence can be used (abused?) by a Dail committee in the manner it has been in this case, just because a popular perception of guilt exists.
Perhaps he is guilty, perhaps he is not, however we have rules of law pertaining to evidence and admissability in court, and every citizen who has not been found guilty in a court of law has his/her right to a good name. So-called "evidence" which is not legally admissable is worthless.

Sangre

The Gaurds are idiots. If you're going to search a judge you better make every i is dotted and every t is crossed.

Eru

jor el wrote:

And if you're going to be pissed with anyone it should be the Gardai. They fcuked up and performed an illegal search of his home. They should have either exercised the warrant in time, or got it extended.

You seemed really well informed until this comment.

Please look further and you will realise that this was case law stated. In other words the court made the first ever ruling in this type of situation.

Sangre wrote:

The Gaurds are idiots. If you're going to search a judge you better make every i is dotted and every t is crossed.

I expect nothing more from you.

The courts had always viewed these warrants as being 7 days from the next reasonable day (if it was issued at 11.59opm then that day didnt count) but this case decided that the 1st day was the day of issue regardless of time and therefore the warrant was executed hours after expiring. It was case law and the Gardai cannot allow for that in advance.

padser

ninja900 wrote:

It is very worrying that illegally seized evidence can be used (abused?) by a Dail committee in the manner it has been in this case, just because a popular perception of guilt exists.
Perhaps he is guilty, perhaps he is not, however we have rules of law pertaining to evidence and admissability in court, and every citizen who has not been found guilty in a court of law has his/her right to a good name. So-called "evidence" which is not legally admissable is worthless.

Exactly, hard cases make bad law. We have rules of law for a reason, they should be followed, and the Dail committee is slightly worrying to me too, however if the SC allowed it then it must have passed the constiutional challenge of 'fair trial', at least in their eyes.

Bottom line, the guards went and got a warrent, didnt excersise it in time, evidence not admissable. There are excellent reasons why we have time limits on warrents, unfortunatly guarda incompetance is probably an argument against it.

constitutionus

just out of interest does anyone know if the gardai who sat on that order untill it expired suffered any consequences? at the very least its dereliction of duty.

my own personal opionion on this is the gardai we're nobbled. someone put the preasure on and all of a sudden the judges off on a technicality. sounds all a little bit too neat for my liking. as people mentioned there's meant to be seperation of the arms of the state but when you consider you need political sponsership to rise in the ranks of the gardai AND the judiciary you have to wonder just how seperate they actually are (remember judge curtain did stand for the PDs at one stage, and guess whos in power now;) )

Eoin

constitutionus wrote:

just out of interest does anyone know if the gardai who sat on that order untill it expired suffered any consequences? at the very least its dereliction of duty.

my own personal opionion on this is the gardai we're nobbled. someone put the preasure on and all of a sudden the judges off on a technicality. sounds all a little bit too neat for my liking. as people mentioned there's meant to be seperation of the arms of the state but when you consider you need political sponsership to rise in the ranks of the gardai AND the judiciary you have to wonder just how seperate they actually are (remember judge curtain did stand for the PDs at one stage, and guess whos in power now;) )

I very much doubt that the whole thing was engineered to get Curtin off the hook because:

1) I just can't see anyone being able to stomach letting it slide

2) It went all the way to court, if there was "pressure" for him to be left off, the DPP would not have pressed charges and made the whole thing public. If you read my earlier post on the first page, you can see why there was confusion over the expiration of the warrant. It was not an open and shut case of the warrant expiring.

3) IIRC, a Garda was also done for the same offence around the same time. It was discovered internally, so probably could have been swept under the carpet if they so wanted.

4) There is nothing "neat" about the whole affair - if there was, then there wouldn't be this whole investigation going on. Everyone wants him out, but an unfortunate interpretation regarding the letter of the law got him off on a technicality. The judge who delivered this ruling is really the only person who would be a plausible candidate for any cover-up (which I am not suggesting at all).

grumpytrousers

Karlitosway1978 wrote:

You seemed really well informed until this comment.

Please look further and you will realise that this was case law stated. In other words the court made the first ever ruling in this type of situation.



I expect nothing more from you.

The courts had always viewed these warrants as being 7 days from the next reasonable day (if it was issued at 11.59opm then that day didnt count) but this case decided that the 1st day was the day of issue regardless of time and therefore the warrant was executed hours after expiring. It was case law and the Gardai cannot allow for that in advance.

I don't particularly have it in for the Gardai, but I do think that in this case it seems rather strange that the warrant was held back (or sat on) for as long as it was. In other words, if the darned warrant was - for instance - signed at half 3 on a wednesday afternoon, why in the name of jesus were the Gardai waiting until the following wednesday afternoon (i.e. 24 * 7 hours) to execute the friggin' thing...

If there was prOn on Curtains computer, then there was prOn on Curtains computer; 'holding back' on the execution couldn't really benefit anybody, unless they believe he was going to download more during the week the warrant was 'live'. And even if he WAS going to download more, surely to God, possession is possession and he'd haven been nailed for that anyway...

if I'm missing out on something here, lemme know!

seamus

grumpytrousers wrote:

I don't particularly have it in for the Gardai, but I do think that in this case it seems rather strange that the warrant was held back (or sat on) for as long as it was. In other words, if the darned warrant was - for instance - signed at half 3 on a wednesday afternoon, why in the name of jesus were the Gardai waiting until the following wednesday afternoon (i.e. 24 * 7 hours) to execute the friggin' thing...

While it was a tad ridiculous, it's wholly possible. Look at it this way - they're searching a judge's house, therefore they want to make sure every member of their team does only what they can and only what is necessary. A broken lamp on the way into the house could land them in trouble. That's easily 2-3 days of briefings and planning. Then perhaps the supervising Garda took the Friday and Monday off. And so on...

People, the issue here is that we cannot abandon the legal system when the media bay for blood. It's doubly important to maintain the system when charging someone who is part of that system, as it shows/proves that no-one is safe from that system, not even the system itself.

While it all seems like a bit of a mess, there's no good reason to sack/acquit/harrass Curtin any more than there's good reason to sack/aqcuit/harass me. Hell, if the Gardai demanded to see what was on my computer, I'd probably say no. To the best of my knowledge there's nothing illegal on it, but if they wanted to convict me of anything, they could probably find something which violates some statute.

The only thing which confuses me is that even though the computer was seized illegally, surely it's possible to obtain a warrant to search it now?

anonymous_joe

It's already been said, but I guess it must be reiterated. Judges are protected by the constitution so they can be protected from the government. If they weren't so protected, then conceivably, any decisions made by members of the judiciary that were unwanted by the Government could result in replacement with more malleable judges. See any totalitarian state for an example.

Oh and you'll find that the judiciary is not at all supportive of Curtin. He's damaged the reputation of the entire judiciary with his actions, regarding both child pornography and drink driving.

grumpytrousers

seamus wrote:

While it was a tad ridiculous, it's wholly possible. Look at it this way - they're searching a judge's house, therefore they want to make sure every member of their team does only what they can and only what is necessary. A broken lamp on the way into the house could land them in trouble. That's easily 2-3 days of briefings and planning. Then perhaps the supervising Garda took the Friday and Monday off. And so on...

People, the issue here is that we cannot abandon the legal system when the media bay for blood. It's doubly important to maintain the system when charging someone who is part of that system, as it shows/proves that no-one is safe from that system, not even the system itself.

While it all seems like a bit of a mess, there's no good reason to sack/acquit/harrass Curtin any more than there's good reason to sack/aqcuit/harass me. Hell, if the Gardai demanded to see what was on my computer, I'd probably say no. To the best of my knowledge there's nothing illegal on it, but if they wanted to convict me of anything, they could probably find something which violates some statute.

The only thing which confuses me is that even though the computer was seized illegally, surely it's possible to obtain a warrant to search it now?

point(s) taken, and for the record i'm not of the 'lynch mob' type screaming for blood; I'm quite happy that every so often people of iffy repute don't get 'done' if the price is that the innocent don't either. (I think that makes me a wooly liberal, btw...)

My own particular take on this case is that while Curtain hasn't been convicted and sent to prison his reputation is in tatters. Sure, society 'as a whole' hasn't been afforded the opportunity to formally condemn him to a few years inside but smaller microcosms of society - that's you and me and everybody else folks - all get our opportunities to punish him anyways albeit in a more subtle way. Probably like the old Boycotting thing...'you shall shun him in the street' etc...

O'course on the other side you could say that HE hasn't been afforded the opportunity to present his side of the story, or the right to defend himself using the 'rules of engagement' normally used for branding people a pervert.

I think, Seamus, that's why I'm so stumped about how the Gardai sort of messed this 'un up. It is completely forseeable that in a case of this type, that once you arrest and charge and start the trial of a person for possession of kiddy pr0n, they are tainted one way or the other and that if 'the state' was going to go for him, they should have done it fairly. Convict and be done!

Eoin

seamus wrote:

While it was a tad ridiculous, it's wholly possible. Look at it this way - they're searching a judge's house, therefore they want to make sure every member of their team does only what they can and only what is necessary. A broken lamp on the way into the house could land them in trouble. That's easily 2-3 days of briefings and planning. Then perhaps the supervising Garda took the Friday and Monday off. And so on...

Also, wasn't this part of a nationwide sting? The Gardai probably had many houses to search, which would have required lots of briefing. Presumably they would have wanted to do all the searches in a short a time frame as possible, so as not to give anyone a chance to remove any evidence. This would have inevitably pushed out the searches towards the end of the warrant period.

And lastly - there was probably absolutely no doubt in their mind that they had every right to execute the warrant within 168 hours, so it wasn't an oversight as much as a difference on opinion on the letter of the law. As I said earlier, the law says "7 days to execute a warrant". I would certainly take that to mean 7 days from when the warrant was issued, not from midnight of that day. It was said that it was "widely known" that this was actually the case; this kind of ambiguity is not the fault of the Gardai.

constitutionus

its worth mentioning that as far as i recall no one else has been convicted on this "nationwide sting" either and thats somewhere around twenty people, i put that down to a combination of the heat curtain brought to the cases and the gardai incompetance. i mean for god sake they were given a list of people who bought the porn with their credit cards, how can you feck that up?:rolleyes:

TempestSabre

You are assuming their credit cards weren't used without their knowledge. Credit card fraud isn't unknown, especially with dodgy sites.

Eoin

constitutionus wrote:

its worth mentioning that as far as i recall no one else has been convicted on this "nationwide sting" either and thats somewhere around twenty people, i put that down to a combination of the heat curtain brought to the cases and the gardai incompetance. i mean for god sake they were given a list of people who bought the porn with their credit cards, how can you feck that up?:rolleyes:

Was Tim Allen not convicted? Having read all the details about the warrant, do you not think "Gardai Incompetence" is not a little harsh? Also, it is the responsibility of the DPP to convict, not the Gardai.

BuffyBot

i mean for god sake they were given a list of people who bought the porn with their credit cards, how can you feck that up?

Your in-depth knowledge does you credit..

constitutionus

TempestSabre wrote:

You are assuming their credit cards weren't used without their knowledge. Credit card fraud isn't unknown, especially with dodgy sites.

true, but people who steal credit card details to conduct illegeal puchases of kiddie porn generally dont send it to the credit card holders computer. kinda defeats the purpose of nicking the details in the first place if your not gonna benefit from it. unless of course your implying the judge was set up.

and buffybot, correct me if im wrong but didnt the gardai get the list of targets from the FBI who were monitering the transactions?

BuffyBot

Monitoring the transactions, yes. Finding the material, and proving it was purchased legitimately by the people involved is another thing though.

pete

constitutionus wrote:

and buffybot, correct me if im wrong but didnt the gardai get the list of targets from the FBI who were monitering the transactions?

PC Pro ran a rather alarming article on the quality of the original Landslide / Operation Avalance / Operation Ore "evidence" last year.

The UK's biggest ever crackdown on Internet paedophiles has been driven by misleading intelligence, causing dozens of innocent people to be falsely accused, according to PC Pro magazine.

Writing exclusively in the new August issue, Duncan Campbell (an expert witness in the defence of Operation Ore suspects) says prosecutions against many of the UK's 7,272 Operation Ore suspects were based on flawed evidence received from US officials.

The high-profile investigation began in 2002 when US investigators handed UK police the credit card details of people they claimed had subscribed to child porn. But Campbell says the list also included people who subscribed to legal sites, leading to prosecutions against computer users who had never possessed an offending picture.

'The most critical computer evidence produced in Operation Ore, I have found, was flawed,' says Campbell. 'The mistakes meant huge quantities of police, technical and social work resources were misdirected to some futile and ill-founded investigations. But the worse result was damage to innocent lives, and the welfare of families and children.'

Some prosecutions have centred on what's been claimed in court to be the front page of an adult website which prosecutors said was dominated by a direct link to child pornography.

But new evidence revealed in PC Pro shows that many subscribers could not have seen the page, while US investigators had only seen the link to the child pornography on one occasion.

The report also criticises the media witch-hunt that's increased the pressure on UK police to get results against huge numbers of British computer users.

'Until now, Operation Ore has been widely publicised as an indisputable breakthrough in the fight against child porn, but the computer evidence has been misused,' says Paul Trotter, news and features editor of PC Pro.

'Computer forensics shows that the illegal websites could not be reached from the front page of the legal websites many people subscribed to, and this puts question marks over a number of prosecutions.'

PC Pro's exclusive investigation is included in the August issue (#130) of PC Pro, available in stores from Thursday 23 June.

The full article is available here http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/74690/operation-ore-exposed.html

Depressing stuff.

MrPudding

pete wrote:

PC Pro ran a rather alarming article on the quality of the original Landslide / Operation Avalance / Operation Ore "evidence" last year.



The full article is available here http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/74690/operation-ore-exposed.html

Depressing stuff.

I heard that guy on Newstalk 106 a few weeks ago talking about the Curtin case. He makes a lot of sense.

MrP

Our man in Havana

I think Gardai slipped up badly. When Curtain was aquitted why was his computer not returned to him forthwith? What grounds did the gardai have to hold it?

If they gave it back, could a garda run outside the station and arrest him against for being in possesion (carrying the comp) of child porn?

If Curtain was cute he should have demanded it back and immediatley destroyed it by burning it and then no one could do a thing?

Eoin

Bond-007 wrote:

I think Gardai slipped up badly. When Curtain was aquitted why was his computer not returned to him forthwith? What grounds did the gardai have to hold it?

If they gave it back, could a garda run outside the station and arrest him against for being in possesion (carrying the comp) of child porn?

If Curtain was cute he should have demanded it back and immediatley destroyed it by burning it and then no one could do a thing?

Curtin never requested that the PC be returned to him.

Our man in Havana

I know that, but would they have gave i back?

Could he have been arrested again?

Eoin

Bond-007 wrote:

I know that, but would they have gave i back?

Could he have been arrested again?

Of course they would return it - they have absolutely no legal basis to withhold it. I doubt they could re-seize it immediately though, as this would make decisions about invalid warrants pointless. This is maybe one for the legal forum, but if the Gardai got new evidence that he was up to something, then I am sure they could seize it.