When Martin Bryant stood up in court and did as I expected him to do and pleaded "not guilty" the repercussions of that stirred up the biggest ants nest since Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald. The Department of Prosecutions had practically promised the public a speedy trial to put this assassin away as quickly as possible with a minimum of fuss. The reasons they gave? To save the witnesses having to suffer a trial by jury and dredging up all the trauma again. Imagine what would happen to our judicial system if in every horrific trial the witnesses had to be spared reliving the incidents at the expense of seeing justice done. There would be no justice at all. In order for a man to be accused there must be an accuser and no one stepped forward to identify Martin Bryant at his trial. Despite the dozens of people who could have pointed out Bryant as the assassin the only witness to testify was a questionable video recording which has since been debunked as a fake. My reaction was that if he was not to get a trial by jury then, being an intellectually challenged and deranged person, he would have to be judged and sentenced according to his mental condition. Well, how about temporary insanity then? No, the Australian people had been worked into such a frenzy by the press that nothing less than the maximum penalty would be tolerated for Martin Bryant regardless of his condition. God only knows where those snivel libertarians were in this instance. Isn't everyone entitled to a fair trial? And is not everyone innocent until found guilty? Apparently not in this case. Now, I am one for throwing away the key to those guilty of any violent offense. This business of insanity, temporary insanity, temporarily drugged, drunk or being very angry at the time is not an excuse for harming another human being unless in self defense in my opinion. However we can't count the number of times this kind of plea has worked to get some other scum of the earth off on crimes equally as horrific. So why wouldn't Martin Bryant, accused by every man and his dog as being a mentally deranged maniac, not be allowed to plead insanity? A psychiatrist had determined that Bryant had an IQ of 66 yet rather than this information acting as proof that he at least had diminished responsibility it was used as adequate proof that he was just over the border-line of being sane and therefore fit to be tried. Again, assurance that Bryant would receive the maximum penalty. As I was to find out later, after reading what is left of Bryant's original interview, at no time has he admitted to being at Port Arthur on that day even after extensive questioning. In fact he admitted to several other incriminating events and a full confession would not have much difference to the apparant trouble he was already in. Even though Bryant had not been identified in any police lineup as the gunman, outrage against this man was akin to the old wild west lynch mobs. I just couldn't forget the trouble that the media went to profile Bryant, from enhancing of his photograph to make him look like a wild-eyed Manson maniac to the innuendoes that his house was an arsenal for military weapons. All of this made finding an impartial jury almost impossible - perhaps that was the idea.