Judge Pace case: Penalties and jail terms can’t be increased on appeal
There’s something odd about the information emerging from the Judge Pace case. The purpose of the bribe is supposed to have been to persuade Judge Pace to increase a rival drug-dealer’s 18-year prison term, on appeal.
But the prosecution has no right of appeal, and it is the prosecution which asks for a harsher penalty. The appeal was filed by the drug-dealer himself, asking for a shorter prison term.
So what happened here?
1. The wrong information leaked out to the press in Chinese whispers.
2. The judge fraudulently led those two to think that a convict’s prison term can be lengthened on appeal, when it cannot be.
3. The agreement was for the convict’s appeal not to be upheld – that is, that he would not be given a shorter prison term.
I find it amazing that Judge Pace had any such conversation on the phone, when he knows that this is how Noel Arrigo and Patrick Vella got caught and – more crucially still – that this is how, some years ago, the police got wind of a significant cocaine deal involving three soldiers, one of whom was Sandro Psaila, the same man who stands accused now of trying to bribe this judge.
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I’d like to think our judges are smarter than that, but they keep proving me wrong. We have idiots all over the place in this country.
U Alla hares ma kienx hekk.
Look at Franco? He is not a judge, put a criminal lawyer. He ruined his future in more senses than one for the simple reason that he couldn’t understand that if he didn’t like his captain, his only option was to resign.
Where is our society heading to?
Judges, politicians, and high ranking public officials – all somehow engaged in illegal actions. Committing crimes that they are duty bound to prevent.
Actually I.R.A.B a smart judge would not have got involved except to have the two arrested for attempted bribery.
It’s not the fact that he got caught that makes him an idiot. It is giving up all that he has worked for since his teens.