Supreme Court of Victoria’s great trials, history over 175 years

THE Supreme Court of Victoria has been handing down justice for almost 175 years. Mark Dunn takes a look at the building’s history and the great trials within.

A DUSTY hobnailed boot was unearthed from beneath the kauri-pine floor boards of the First Court during renovations of the Supreme Court building in William St a decade ago.

Some 140 years earlier it had been placed there by a superstitious workman, part of an old English folk tradition in building to capture evil and protect against demons.

A hob-nailed boot found during renovations at the Supreme Court of Victoria.

Across the footworn bluestone steps of the Supreme Court and behind it’s imposing sandstone walls, countless stories of real-life bad spirits have been told.

Tragedies and trauma, tales of murder or financial ruin, lives and liberties have been decided in a continuing human drama.

Bewigged in horse hair and bedecked in red robes, solemn judges have declared death sentences on 186 souls — the first being two Aboriginal “freedom fighters” — Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheener — executed in 1842 for killing two whalers in Westernport to the last, Ronald Ryan’s hanging in 1967 for the shooting murder of a prison officer during an escape from Pentridge Prison.

It is the court’s dark history that has helped spark and carry the rumours of ghosts — centred mainly on the Fourth Court, historically the criminal court with its winding stairs disappearing into the iron prisoner cells beneath.

One judge, not known for flights of fancy, a decade ago reported seeing the mysterious figure of a boy lurking in the courtroom when he went to check some material on the bench, and a cleaning lady claims to have been rushed by an apparition as she entered the same court.

Cumulatively, thousands of years of jail time have been imposed, billions of dollars in assets have been adjudicated upon, reputations have been won or lost, the power of the state has been tested and, all the while, the interface between the law and the evolving society it serves has been defined.

ON Tuesday, the Supreme Court marks 175 years since it first sat, on April 12, 1841, when formal white settlement in Port Phillip District was six years old and the local population was under 12,000.

That first sitting took place in a small red brick building and former government store, now long gone, on the corner of Bourke and King streets, and was overseen by a newly arrived Sydney judge, the unliked John Walpole Willis.

Humble beginnings, a burgeoning population and a coming goldmining rush led to a second, larger and more elaborate Supreme Court being erected on La Trobe St in 1843, at the rear of Melbourne’s newly built jail.

Supreme Court of Victoria building. Friday, April 8. 2016. Picture: David Crosling

But neither the first or second courts were a scratch on the grand edifice of the Law Courts project to house a new Supreme Court on the corner of William and Lonsdale.

Erected between 1874 and 1884, it was then the largest, most expensive building project in Australia.

An allocation of £239,438 for building costs ($43 million today) had tripled by the time the new Supreme Court heard its first case.

Marked by a soaring copper central dome housing the Supreme Court Library and its more than 100,000 leather-bound reference books, the Renaissance Revival-style facade of Tasmanian freestone on thick Malmsbury bluestone footings was designed to announce to all the “severity” of the court’s function.

Situated west of the city centre on high ground and closer to the mercantile and port precincts, the court’s dome was to complement the domes of the State Library, Royal Exhibition Building, the later Flinders St station and one planned, but not erected, at Parliament House.

Adorning the Supreme Court’s main entrance beside a double open arcade of Ionic and Composite columns, sat the statue of Justicia, a lady justice known colloquially by the legal fraternity as “Gertie”.

Unlike most other judicial icons in the Commonwealth, Gertie, although holding the scales of justice, posed without a blindfold — is said to reflect her open vision and desire to watch over those who walked into the court seeking justice.

Much later, former Premier Rupert Hamer, lamenting “the old lady is showing her age”, had Gertie craned down in 1963 but, sadly, she is believed to have been inadvertently destroyed, perhaps dropped, and the bronze sword she once held, reported to have been kept at the Law Department’s Offices at Owen Dixon Chambers, has also been lost.

Gertie was replaced by a smaller, bronze version in 1967, also without the blindfold.

Despite the deliberately stoic and serious design of the building, the open-eyed symbolism fits well with the ideals of the court as it moved from its gaslit, coal-fire heated days into a modern era where courts have been fitted with better acoustics, somewhat better comfort, digital access, wi-fi and video link monitors.

Chief Justice Marilyn Warren, appointed the 11th Chief Justice of Victoria in 2003 and the first woman to lead any Supreme Court in Australia has spoken of transforming the building’s 19th-century aura of intimidation to a place of compassion.

The swearing in of Chief Justice Marilyn Warren at Supreme Court in Melbourne in 2003. Picture: Brett Hartwig

JUSTICE and punishment are still delivered in the objective and clinical measures that law demands, but some of the old English and Victorian era processes are being tempered or abandoned.

So it is with judicial wigs and robes now not being worn in many commercial cases — and debate about their ongoing appearance in the criminal jurisdiction.

Even the location of the Supreme Court itself is a matter for review, with Chief Justice Warren previously inviting design proposals for a potential future move to a new complex at the former Royal Mint site further north on William St.

“It is very difficult to operate in a modern 21st-century way within a 19th-century building,” Chief Justice Warren told the Herald Sun. “One of the most concerning aspects of the current building is the way it treats victims, litigants and witnesses with disabilities.

“Worst of all is the building’s harsh and inadequate environment for the families of victims.

“It is important to remember that the Supreme Court, as the highest court in the state, plays a vital role in the administration of justice.

“It deals with deep human tragedy, dreadful injuries and the most complex and large commercial proceedings.

“The Supreme Court has served its citizens since 1841 and has always been at the forefront of significant delivery of justice — for example, the breast implant and thalidomide cases, the bushfire cases, big corporate insolvencies, the gangland murder trials, the largest terrorism trial in Australia — Benbrika — and more.

“The court exists to serve the rule of law and the citizens of Victoria.”

Port Phillip District was officially opened in September 1836 and its first “court” was overseen by police magistrate Captain William Lonsdale, who heard charges against settlers in a wattle-branch hut.

Courts of Petty Sessions, Quarter Sessions and Requests were later established but capital cases and more serious charges and disputes arising in Melbourne had to be sent to Sydney.

When Resident Judge Willis of the New South Wales Supreme Court was deployed to Melbourne in 1841 the settlement was finally able to deal with all matters itself and his appointment was seen as a fillip for the formal founding of the colony of Victoria.

But even that start was controversial, with claims the gruff Judge Willis was despised by his brother judges in Sydney and the planned ceremonial welcome in Melbourne was spoiled by his early, unannounced arrival.

“Willis was a divisive figure with a reputation for generating scandal wherever he went,” according to a new book, Judging for the People, which commemorates the court’s anniversary.

His cantankerous attitude and sparring with legal counsel saw him commit Magistrate J.B. Were to an escalating period of imprisonment after Were claimed not to remember signing a document as a witness in an insolvency case.

He lambasted a flamboyantly moustachioed lawyer Edward Sewell for appearing like a “hussar” in his court and, having a history of fights with the press, refused Port Phillip Gazette editor George Arden a jury trial in a libel case and sentenced him to a year in prison.

Antipathy towards the first judge was said to have prompted superintendent Charles LaTrobe to, although grudgingly agree, that a street be named after Willis, say it should be a “cross” street to match his demeanour and not the thoroughfare named after surveyor Robert Hoddle.

As the colony, now separated from NSW in 1851, grew, so did the Supreme Court and William à Beckett became the first Chief Justice of Victoria and Redmond Barry the first puisne judge of the Supreme Court.

Within a month of separating from New South Wales, gold was discovered in Victoria, the population tripled within the space of a year, and the infant colony sought to assert itself in both importance and style.

An elaborate ceremony to set the foundation stone of the second Supreme Court was preceded by a procession of 300 people, after which the stone was “knocked three times with a maul by both Willis and the Worshipful Master of the Freemasons and then strewn with corn from a cornucopia and anointed with oil and wine poured from silver vases”, according to Judging for the People.

The High Court of Australia Centenary Sitting in the Banco Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne. Picture: Stuart McEvoy/AAP

THE building was later to host the high-profile trials of Ned Kelly in 1880, and was one of the courtrooms used for the Eureka Stockade trials in 1855.

Such was the interest in criminal trials and the goings-on in court they were treated as “entertainment” by the public and the Kelly and Eureka hearings attracted huge crowds.

Often hundreds and sometimes thousands milled in the streets outside court to be passed information as it came to hand.

The new Law Courts, 11 years after work began and at three times the forecast cost, opened on 15 February, 1884, a year before London journalist George Augustus Sala dubbed the town “Marvellous Melbourne” in recognition of its emerging grandeur.

Incorporating what was at the time, ultra modern ventilation and water heating pipe systems, the building featured rich cedar chairs and pews — many of which are still in use today — and soaring ceilings edged in deep, ornate cornices.

But even the expense and majesty failed to impress those who got lost in the labyrinth-like corridors which baffled visitors and lawyers alike, despite the “fingerpost” signage (now assisted by touchscreens) and hall porters giving directions.

The Melbourne Punch reported one judge’s claim that “he never dreams of going alone through the miles of corridors and passages without a flask, a paper of sandwiches, and a box of matches” and said the Law Courts were a good place “to meet a person whom you don’t wish to see”.

On its first day of sittings, with workmen having laboured throughout the night on finishing touches, things got off to a shaky start in Court Four, with the judge rejecting his intricately carved and slippery-seated new chair for a “cosy, old oval-backed” model, before the wrong prisoner was brought up from the cells beneath the court.

Acoustics were also lacking — especially later when trams trundled down William St — and juries were seen leaning forward, hands cupped to ears in effort to hear evidence in the cavernous courtrooms.

The Supreme Court Library — now home to the Victorian Constitution and thousands of other rare publications — was not completed until 1888, but is a highlight of the building with a false internal dome and painted clerestory windows, high above cast-iron balustrading and a polished decagonal table with a flamboyant brass gasolier lighting the main room.

The Supreme Court was a vital element in Victoria’s development, with judgments on the regulation of crucial capital raising for mining, infrastructure and commerce — a process which created the Company Law Acts.

Social welfare was also a fundamental jurisdiction; under the Divorce or Matrimonial Causes Act it oversaw divorce applications — which needed evidence of abandonment, adultery or abuse — from 1863 to 1976.

One of the first divorce applications to come before the court unfortunately involved one of its own four judges, Judge Robert Molesworth, who’s solicitor, alleged to have embezzled clients’ funds, had mucked up the Molesworth divorce petition in London and the process had to be restarted.

Henrietta Molesworth was to allege cruelty, was forced then to give evidence about a child to another man and Judge Molesworth was cross-examined in a case that set tongues wagging.

Bob Gotterson QC (left) addresses the High Court of Australia Centenary Sitting in the Banco Court of the Supreme Court of Victoria. Picture: Stuart McEvoy/AAP

THE court also had a Master of Lunacy, who oversaw the property and legal affairs of those committed to asylums — something it still does but in a much more nuanced and compassionate way.

Melbourne became the capital of Australia with Federation in 1901 and the court hosted the first sitting of the High Court.

The jurisdiction has grown from one judge in 1841 to 44, plus four reserve judges today across the commercial, common law, criminal, associate and appeals lists.

As part of commemoration activities for the Supreme Court’s 175th anniversary, the Law Courts will be specially illuminated from April 12 to Law Week in mid-May.

Guided public tours are available and can be booked through the court’s website and an exhibition of historic material is able to be viewed in the Supreme Court Library.

Much of that colourful history is recorded in the book to be launched, Judging for the People, a social history of the Supreme Court in Victoria 1841-2016, which was a collaboration between the Supreme Court and the Royal Historical Society of Victoria.

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