MARTIN BRYANT’S PLEA OF GUILTY
Last week I had some intellectually challenged twit (obviously influenced by the media) tell me "but Bryant admitted he did it!". I asked the mental whiz how he came to that conclusion and the reply was "in court, he said he was guilty".
Perhaps I am being a bit too harsh on that individual, after all most of the Australian population have fallen for that argument. In any case, the fellow can’t be any more intellectually challenged than Bryant himself. Bryant’s intelligence places him in the lower 1-2% of the population. He is so slow that this bit of conversation took place during the Seascape siege:
McCarthy: Now if you don’t want to tell me your name that’s fine but how about giving me your passport number and we can do a check on that?
Jamie: I think it’s H02 4967 if I can remember it cause I travelled quite a lot overseas an most an um travel agencies know me around town ma around Hobart I should say so
So this is the so called mastermind of the Port Arthur Massacre, how brilliant! When Bryant is asked to give his name in order that airline tickets can be purchased for him – he refuses to give his name, but he gives his passport number. Like I said, a bit slow.
So let’s look at this "guilty plea" a bit more. In the record of interview, Martin Bryant does not admit to the Port Arthur Massacre, nor did he in court say "I did it". What he said was "guilty", a formal pleading in the artificial environment known as the law. Other legal jurisdictions have other pleas and other verdicts – in Australia we are stuck with just "guilty" and "not-guilty". Since Bryant pleaded "guilty", we need to look at why he pleaded guilty.
Bryant’s first lawyer was David Gunson QC. You may recall when Bryant made his first appearance to plea to the charges, he pleaded "Not Guilty". Shortly thereafter Mr. Gunson withdrew from the case. There had been lots of speculation about why he withdrew, but that is all it is – speculation. However, it is curious.
Now let us look at what Martin Bryant’s second lawyer has to say about how he proceeded with Bryant’s "defence". Mr. John Avery was the new lawyer and he has been quoted many times about "having to do right by the community, as well as Martin Bryant". However, it is in a Hobart Mercury newspaper clipping of 22 November 1996 that we get a much better inside view of what was going on in the cell block. I quote from that article and the underlines are mine:
"I am not at liberty to divulge that, of course, without his express instructions but, yes, he's potentially aware of what he did".
"The one different thing about this case to any other, if one puts aside the magnitude of what the conduct was, was getting into this man's head to a degree that he would feel confident that you could do something for him, and that wasn't easy."
"There were days obviously where I came away frustrated but it was simply a case of continuing to talk at his level, and try to have him see, given the overwhelming weight of evidence against him, that the proper course was
one he ultimately embarked upon, namely a plea of guilty"
Speaking on ABC radio's AM program, Mr. Avery said Bryant came to a gradual realisation over a few weeks that this course was the course for him to adapt, and it would have been worthless to bully or coerce him into pleading guilty.
Now let’s go back and dissect the comments in those four paragraphs. The first one is that Bryant was "potentially" aware of what he did. "Potentially"? what the hell does that mean? The impression I get from that statement is that Avery is saying that Bryant was still denying he did it, but because of Bryant’s mental incapacity he just didn’t "understand" that he did it.
The next paragraph shows the confidence game that Avery was acting out. Avery talks about "getting into his head" and making Bryant "feel confident that you could do something for him" and that the task of getting Bryant’s confidence "wasn’t easy".
The third paragraph refers to the constant wearing down of Bryant. Initially, Bryant refused, day after day, which frustrated Avery with the task of "try(ing) to have him see" "that the proper course" was "a plea of guilty".
Finally, in the last paragraph Mr. Avery states that it took him a few weeks of gradual work for Bryant to "adapt" the course of the guilty plea. (Which is a bit ambiguous and I expect the article meant "adopt", however the word "adapt" does mean to modify or alter.) However, the last sentence is a beauty - "and it would have been worthless to bully or coerce him into pleading guilty". Yeah right - can’t use thumbscrews, so we will have to be a bit more subtle about it.
If anyone can take those statements from the lawyer who represented Bryant as being an admission that Bryant did it, then they would have to have a lower IQ than Bryant himself. I do have to hand it to Avery though, during the Lindy Chamberlain case, nobody was able to wear her down and get her to plea guilty to killing just one little baby – heck, Avery managed to get Bryant to plea guilty to killing 35 people. The guy’s just got to be good.
The Police thought he was good too, and that was well before he "defended" Bryant. In May 1996 the gun dealer Terry Hill had volunteered information to Police about Bryant bringing the AR10 (.308) into his shop and how he had retained possession of the firearm. By June the Police and the same solicitor, John Avery, were trying to coerce Terry Hill into admitting he sold firearms to Martin Bryant. (You do remember the stuff-up with the AR-10 and the substitution of the SLR for the massacre don’t you?) Well, here was Avery drafting up an "indemnity against prosecution" if Terry Hill would just admit he sold the firearms to Bryant that were used in the massacre. You see, the prosecution had a big problem with where the SLR came from and Terry Hill was going to be the patsy.
Terry Hill resisted the intimidation and refused to cooperate - which then resulted in him being put out of business. Avery on the other hand continued to work with the Police (at the same time he was visiting Bryant in prison) right up until 31 October, at which time it was announced that one week later, on 7 November, Bryant’s pre-trial hearing would be heard – it was then, with John Avery looking on, that Bryant pleaded guilty.
Read again the words in the newspaper article, see what Avery said; then imagine someone with an IQ of 66 and a psychological age of 11 (and who had been held in solitary confinement for more than 6 months) sitting there listening to the soothing words of "his" smooth-talking lawyer. Bryant never admitted that he did it, he just did what his lawyer wanted.