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Chester Porter

The Conviction of the Innocent: How the law can let us down by Chester Porter

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October 2007, no. 295
Philip Selth reviews 'The Conviction of the Innocent: How the law can let us down' by Chester Porter

Chester Porter QC retired as a barrister in June 2000. Several weeks previous, the Bar Council appointed Porter a life member of the New South Wales Bar Association ‘for his exceptional service to the Bar Association and the profession of law’. The Council’s decision was unanimous (I know this because I wrote the minutes of that meeting). There was, and is, no dispute that Porter was one of Australia’s foremost advocates. Porter retired from the Bar, but not from passionately advocating justice for those caught up in our criminal justice system, including those members of society many of the community would be happy to have rot behind bars.

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Secrets of the Jury Room by Malcolm Knox & The Gentle Art of Persuasion by Chester Porter

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October 2005, no. 275
Peter Haig reviews 'Secrets of the Jury Room: Inside the black box of criminal justice In Australia' by Malcolm Knox and 'The Gentle Art of Persuasion: How to argue effectively' by Chester Porter

According to Aristotle, rhetoric is ‘the ability, in each particular case, to see the available means of persuasion’. In today’s parlance, the term is often used pejoratively, connoting an obfuscation of truth. This would come as no surprise to Aristotle, whose treatise on the topic, Rhetorica, demonstrated an acute awareness of the dangers posed by the adroit manipulation of the means of persuasion for dubious ends.

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