According to Mr Newell, Tauatavelu was simply venting his anger because Sergeant Tate - who was trying to contain a volatile and violent confrontation - had pepper-sprayed him.
Was Mr Newell suggesting that Sergeant Tate was asking for a near life-taking bashing and got what he deserved?
Sergeant Tate could have saved himself and run away.
Instead, he did his duty, tried to stand his ground, protect Tauatavelu's bashed wife and as a result suffered dreadful injuries in what the Crown was satisfied was a murderous attack.
CaseLoad remembers a different time when violent attacks on police officers were condemned as serious attacks on society itself and not brushed off by slick lawyers paid to find ways of shifting the blame.
Read more:
• Not guilty of trying to kill police officer
Why Plea Bargaining Deals Fall Over
CaseLoad is indebted to the Manawatu Standard newspaper for finding out that a quarter of sentencing indication applications are falling through.
"Despite thousands of applications made by people wanting to determine what their sentences might be if they plead guilty before trial, a quarter are not coming to fruition," the paper says justice ministry figures show.
Figures obtained using the Official Information Act show 4498 applications were made nationally for sentencing indications between 2011 and June 2014.
A total of 2617 applications resulted in guilty pleas, while 752 pleaded not guilty.
The remaining 25 per cent - 1129 applications - were either rejected by judges or withdrawn, according to a justice ministry mouthpiece.
The number of sentence indications requested and given has increased steadily since the Criminal Procedure Act came into force on 5 March 2012, and courts minister Chester Borrows says they are working well.
They Won't Take This Lying Down
Auckland University law school has been ranked 28th in 2014 in world university rankings developed by careers and advisory company Qaucquarelli Symonds (QS).
This is the best ranking for a New Zealand law school, putting Auckland ahead of Otago (37th), Victoria (49th), Canterbury (51st to 100th) and Waikato (101st to 150th).
The system for ranking uses six different ratings, with academic peer review contributing 40 per cent.
QS's top ten world law school ratings are Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, New York, Stanford, LSE, Melbourne, Chicago and Berkley.
Judge Tells Other Judge To Do It Right
The strange case of a bloke who got off a drink driving charge because the judge effectively reckoned he was too drunk to waive his right to a lawyer is not yet over.
Back in February 2013, district court judge Peter Butler (appointed ten years earlier by former Labour attorney-general Margaret Wilson) dismissed an excessive alcohol charge against Darin John Buck after finding Mr Buck had not made an informed and voluntary waiver of his rights.
Judge Butler found that a man with three times the blood alcohol level for driving (as the police said Mr Buck was) was not capable of an intelligent assessment as to what a waiver was or what he was waiving in the circumstances.
A police appeal by way of "case stated" bounced around the court system, along with a bit of "miscommunication" before emerging as a "general appeal."
Judge Butler refused to state the case, claiming it was not a case stated but a general appeal and not decided on a question of law but on the facts.
The Crown then asked the High Court to order Judge Butler to state a case.
Just the other day, former solicitor general Justice David Collins agreed there was a question of law to be determined on whether, on the facts, Judge Butler ought to have concluded Mr Buck had made a valid waiver of his right to a lawyer.
Justice Collins said Judge Butler erred when he refused to state a case for the High Court to consider and ordered him to get on and do it.
Claws Out In Swanky Partnership Bust Up
Not everything comes up smelling of roses when a legal partnership is dissolved.
When Queen's counsel David Heaney, of Auckland law firm Heaney & Co, gave his partners Susan Thodey and Helen Rice 28 days notice in May 2013 to terminate the partnership, Ms Rice smelt a rat.
Up tell then Heaney & Co was a highly successful and profitable firm, particularly acting for local authorities including Auckland council and specialising in leaky building issues and insurance.
But after 12 years in partnership and significant expansion of the firm, Mr Heaney didn't want Ms Rice as a partner any more.
Ms Rice says that on the same day he gave notice dissolving the partnership, Mr Heaney told clients she would not longer be a partner and that he and Ms Thodey would be joined in partnership by three of the firm's associates as Heaney & Partners.
Ms Rice was out.
In a High Court bid for discovery of documents before a substantive hearing of her claim, Ms Rice claimed that as a Heaney & Co partner she had a beneficial interest in a bundle of rights and interests which had effectively been denied her.
Among other things she also claimed that from the time of giving notice, Mr Heaney and Ms Thodey acted in breach of their duties to her by approaching clients and staff, assuming control of the firm's assets and remaining in occupation of the office.
She claimed Mr Heaney and Ms Thodey appropriated the value of the bundle of rights to themselves.
In wanting discovery of any documents relevant to the partnership dissolution Ms Rice wanted to know if either Mr Heaney or Ms Thodey contrived the outcome in order to profit improperly at her or the firm's expense.
Invoking the well-known principles in Compagnie Financiere et Commerciale du Pacifique v The Peruvian Guano Co (known commonly as Pervuvian Guano) that documents must relate to the case, Justice Simon Moore directed Mr Heaney and Ms Thodey to produce any documents relating to the possible dissolution of the firm in the 18 months before May 3, 2013.
A court date for the main event, if it goes ahead, is not yet known.
Footnote 1: Along with Simon Moore, David Heaney was one of the first seven lawyers to be made a senior counsel (SC) in 2008 after Helen Clark's anti-monarchy Labour government abolished the rank of Queen's counsel.
They happily reverted to Queen's counsel as soon as they were able under a National government.
Seen and Heard
* Deborah Kessell-Haak is a new senior associate in the Wellington office of intellectual property firm Baldwins, specialising in trade marks.
Claire McInnes (patents, trade marks and designs), Kate Giddens (trade marks and branding), Thomas Huthwaite (intellectual property litigation, dispute resolution and commercialisation) and Vanessa Huppert (trade marks, infringement, copyright, passing off), join Baldwin's Wellington office as associates, while Dr Katherine Hebditch (patent specifications, prosecuting applications, patent oppositions and advice on local and international patentability) is a new associate in the Auckland office.
* Bankside Chambers junior barrister Mark Tushington is off to Oxford University to study for his Bachelor of Civil Law, after winning the 2014 FMB Reynolds scholarship and receiving a Spencer Mason traveling scholarship in law.
The Reynolds scholarship recognizes more than 40 years of support to New Zealand law students by Emeritus Professor Francis Reynolds, of Worcester College, Oxford.
*After ten years in litigation and general practice, including preparatory work for proceedings in the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, Todd Greenwood has joined Waiheke Island firm Hauraki Gulf Law as a senior solicitor.
Source: lawpoints@lawsociety.org.nz
Footnote 2: With no date apparently in sight for the return to New Zealand of Malaysian diplomat Muhammad Rizalman bin Ismail (arrested and charged on May 9) to face a sex charge, don't be surprised if some enterprising lawyer tries for a venue change on the grounds of prejudicial pre-trial publicity.
"Tuscany???" suggested Our Man At The Bar.
Footnote 3: Now that Attorney-General Chris Finlayson has been almost ruled out, who will - or won't - be the next Justice Minister???
CaseLoad has heard the names Amy Adams and Simon Bridges, both of whom have strong legal credentials.
"You mean they have law degrees, which usually helps," said The Scunner.
Keep up with Jock Anderson's weekly lawyer profiles here. 
