The ACT courts played host to infamous cases involving Coalition turncoat Peter Slipper, alleged cop killer David Eastman, and Hoddle Street shooter Julian Knight.

The year started with death, with two fresh murder investigations after a pair of men were killed within a week over the summer holiday shutdown, and an inquiry into the long-running question of who killed Canberra top cop Colin Winchester.

The year ended with a life sentence for one convicted murderer, and four alleged killers awaiting trial in the ACT Supreme Court, with a fifth before the ACT Magistrates Court.

Prosecutions over a number of workplace fatalities also hit the courts as bolstered work safety took effect.

Here are the top 10 cases.

David Harold Eastman is again awaiting trial for the 1989 assassination of ACT police chief Colin Stanley Winchester.

Eastman walked free from Canberra jail in August, having served serving 19 years, after his murder conviction was quashed following an inquiry's findings that his 1995 trial had been a miscarriage of justice.

Eastman's legal have launched a stay application to permanently halt a retrial.

Mr Winchester's family are said to be prepared for the legal fight ahead.

Disgraced federal politician Peter Slipper continued to grab headlines when a Canberra magistrate found he had criminally misused his travel entitlements to visit Canberra region wineries.

The former parliamentary speaker was sentenced to 300 hours' community service and ordered to repay $954.

His lawyers appealed the conviction to the ACT Supreme Court and the matter was heard in December.

The appeal was reserved and is expected to be handed down in 2015.

Hoddle Street shooter Julian Knight launched a lawsuit against the Commonwealth over injuries he allegedly suffered during bastardisation at Duntroon.

He has also sought compensation as a victim of crime.

Interestingly, Knight was interviewed in December by Canberra police over a historic stabbing attack at a Civic nightclub, where a fellow Duntroon officer cadet was knifed in the head in 1987.

The civil cases are expected to be heard in the new year.

Police also came under the spotlight in 2014, with one officer taken off frontline duty and another is believed to have quit after a number of mishandled jobs.

An Australian Federal Police internal investigation was launched after an ACT prison guard was wrongly locked up for four month in notorious Goulburn jail on rape and assault charges.

But the charges were dropped and the woman charged with making false accusations after surveillance found evidence she had been lying.

An ACT Policing officer was stood down in June after a home security system filmed the plain clothes officer firing capsicum spray at a chained dog in May.

The officer kept his job, but was ordered to undergo counselling and retraining, after a probe found no evidence the dog had been injured by the spray.

The ACT courts were again been busy with a series of murder cases.

After a gruelling six-week trial, Aleksander Vojneski was found guilty and then sentenced to life for the stabbing murder of his girlfriend Paula Conlon.

The trial of Luigi Costa - alleged to have fatally knifed his neighbour Terrence Freebody – was scheduled for August, but then postponed until 2015 after delays with medical evidence and the resignation of his defence team.

Accused killers Christopher Navin and Danny Klobucar were both committed to stand trial for the murders of Nicholas Sofer-Schreiber and Miodrag Gajic.

Meanwhile, Gabriela Woutersz, 23, is before the courts charged with killing her mother at their family home in Dunlop in October.

Former Bosnian Croat soldier Krunoslav Bonic, 39, is facing extradition from the ACT to face allegations of war crimes against civilians.

Bonic is alleged to have committed crimes during the bloody 1992-95 Bosnian war involving the country's Serb, Croat and Bosnian Muslim ethnic groups.

The extradition is expected to be heard in the ACT Magistrates Court early in 2015.

Charges over four workplace deaths in the ACT came before the courts as tough new laws took effect.

Canberra Contractors were committed to face an ACT Supreme Court trial over the death of construction veteran Wayne Vickery, 45 of Yass, who was killed while working on a West Macgregor worksite in December 2011.

Schwing Australia and a NSW-based engineer were charged with criminal offences over the death of Ben Catanzariti, who was killed by a falling 39-metre boom of a concrete-pouring machine on a building site in Kingston in July 2012.

Kenoss Contractors and Munir al-Hasani face allegations they breached their duties under the Work Health and Safety Act, when Gunning truck driver Michael Booth, 48, was electrocuted while working for Kenoss Contractors at Turner in 2012.

Mr al-Hasani, the acting director at the time, became the first senior manager to be charged over the death of an employee in a workplace incident in Australia.

Meanwhile, in May, SITA Australia and labour hire company Adecco Industrial were both fined $5000 after pleading guilty to breaching safety after Geoffrey William 'Blackfella' Gowan was fatally pinned to a hopper behind the Evatt shops in 2009.

A number of lawsuits hit the court over two mass food poisonings in 2013.

Dickson restaurant Copa paid out an estimated $1 million to victims struck down by salmonella poisoning after eating bad raw egg mayonnaise at the then newly opened restaurant in May 2013.

The owners of the restaurant, listed as Zeffirelli Pizza Restaurant Pty Ltd, are also facing criminal charges over the salmonella outbreak.

Meanwhile, lawyers are preparing to launch a second civil lawsuit for food poisoning, this time against caterer Scolarest.

About 53 students became ill with gastroenteritis after an end of year celebration at Australian National University's Burgmann College in October 2013.

An ACT Health investigation found the likely cause of the outbreak had been "insufficient cooking of campylobacter-contaminated chicken livers used in the pate".

At least three Mr Fluffy home owners filed papers after they unknowingly bought properties contaminated with deadly asbestos.

Court documents named a number of defendants - including the ACT government, the former owner, real estate agents, law firms and building companies – who property holders claim should have revealed the homes could still contain the potentially deadly asbestos.

The claims total almost $4 million in damages, compensation, interest, costs, and an order for the rescission of the contracts of sale.

But the claims were only filed to beat the six-year limit to make a claim and could be abandoned if a buyback agreement was signed with the government.

ACT Policing smashed an alleged drug ring operating out of Canberra jail.

Five alleged members were charged in the ACT and almost $85,000 cash and about 830 grams of drugs were seized in the operation.

All have pleaded not guilty.

A further three men, including a Chinese drug cook, were arrested and hauled before the NSW courts for their alleged role in the syndicate.

Intercepts also allegedly caught phone calls to a Canberra Rebels bikie and a Brothers4Life gang member.

Meanwhile, Lyneham man Stanley Hou is before the courts after police located an alleged clandestine drug lab in Hume in August.

Police said the chemicals found in the Sheppard Street warehouse could have produced 400 kilograms of MDMA, or more than 4 million ecstasy pills, with an estimated street value of between $8.4 million and $15.1 million.