(no subject)

[theweaselking]

UK man becomes first person in more than 800 years to be convicted in a double-jeopardy case - where the appeal that caused his retrial was "Crown is appealling because we're absolutely certain the jury was wrong and he is guilty".

Now, in this case, the Crown was right - he WAS guilty, the jury WAS wrong, and the guy confessed after the first two acquittals.

But allowing an acquittal to be quashed and a retrial ordered because the prosecutors think they've got a better shot at a conviction now than they did when they tried the guy the first time? That's not good.

Comments

[mckenzee.livejournal.com]

I always find the reference to The Crown amusing. I wish our government had gotten defined by headgear at some point.

The Tricorn was correct, but the Tophat was merciful...

[paoconnell.livejournal.com]

Maybe the Crown is something your dentist installs...

[porgymcnasty.livejournal.com]

There seems little point in having juries, if the Crown are just going to ignore their verdict.

Perhaps the governement will start demanding re-election after re-election until the electorate vote them back in.

The only thing in the Crowns favour is that the suspect made a confession; but if the guy had known that he could be tried again would he have made the confession to a crime he thought he had already gotten away with?

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Apparently their contention is yes. I wouldn't say I expect it, but I'm not entirely surprised; people have been known to confess to crimes that they've gotten away with.

(I'm going to go back to jumping on my brain with both feet now, so that it stops trying to imagine what discovering the four-month-decomposing corpse of your daughter must be like.)

[paoconnell.livejournal.com]

"Dunlop had faced two trials after Ms Hogg’s body was discovered behind her bath at her home in Billingham, Teesside, by her mother but was cleared by both juries after they failed to reach a verdict."

First, IANAL.

In the US at least, the defendant would not have been cleared, as each of those two trials would be a mistrial because of a "hung jury" (could not reach a verdict). There would have been a third trial. If Dunlop was acquitted in the third trial, he could not be tried again, as that would be double jeopardy. If the third trial resulted in a hung jury, he would have been tried again...

I do realize that Canada and the UK have different trial rules. Someone enlighten us, please.

[cmseward.livejournal.com]

I thought the Canadian system was the same as you described there.

As for the UK, I dunno. I recall hearing (when I was living in Ireland) that the judge in a judge-and-jury trial in either the UK or Ireland was actually allowed to instruct the jury to find a guilty verdict due to the evidence presented. (I remember thinking it was kind of odd to have a judge-and-jury trial where the judge tells the jury what to say, as it seemed a waste of time to have the jury there at all.)

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

The new law allows a retrial when "new and compelling evidence" comes to light. That seems reasonable to me.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

I'm totaly cool with this. As long as it's only used when clearly warrented.