A trial judge has inherent power to control communications between counsel and an accused at critical moments during a trial, including during an application to reopen the prosecution case while the accused is under cross-examination, as an incident of the court's power to preserve the integrity of the trial process. This power co-exists with, and is not excluded by, the ethical rules governing counsel-witness communications. For sentencing, the case confirms that sentences well into double figures are appropriate for trafficking offences involving quantities thousands of times the commercial quantity threshold, and that mitigatory allowances for youth and good character are properly tempered in cases of serious, sophisticated drug trafficking.
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