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Originally Posted by JagoPlasma Why is it common practice in a courtroom to hold lots of important information back from the jury? (I.e. discounting a knife from the scene of a murder because it wasn’t handled properly, which in turn is never disclosed to the jury) these are the people responsible for sentencing people be it to life or even death in some countries. |
Well, there are a lot of different reasons for that. Sometimes it's an effort to ensure that it isn't too easy to manufacture evidence. If a witness, for example, is allowed to say "well, I've never seen him steal anything, but I was told by this bloke I met down the pub that he's a thief" then, even if the witness giving evidence
is actually sincere, it's too easy for there to be misunderstandings, or for the "bloke down the pub" to be spreading false rumours. Thus, evidence of this sort is not allowed: it's classed as "hearsay". In order for this sort of evidence to be valid the witness would have to have
first hand evidence that the defendant is a thief.
Another possibility is that a piece of evidence may be (in the opinion of the judge) not directly relevant and consequently misleading. For example, if the defence counsel in a rape case wishes to bring up the fact that the alleged victim has had a rather colourful sex life, he probably wants to bring that up to prejudice the jury against her, and make them think that she's a bad person and deserved what happened, or that she was probably "up for it" at the time and changed her mind afterwards. The judge might decide that the victim's previous sexual history is not actually relevant in determining whether or not she consented to sex on this particular occasion, and therefore not allow that line of questioning.
Another important reason is that it's a guarantee of civil liberties. It has been decided, for example, that the police cannot waltz into your home any time they feel like it: they either have to have reasonable grounds to suspect that a crime is actually being committed right then and there, or they have to present evidence that there are reasonable grounds for suspicion and get a search warrant. If a piece of evidence is acquired improperly (for example, by breaking into the defendant's house without a warrant), what then? If the evidence is admitted in the same way regardless of whether there was a warrant or not, then the police will
routinely be breaking into people's houses all the time because there's no reason for them not to. But if you have a rule that evidence collected without following correct procedures
can't actually be used in court anyway, this makes it much more likely that the police will stick to the rules, because there's nothing to be gained by breaking them.
There are plenty of other reasons, too. If the results of some kind of forensic test are important, for example, then we need to be sure that there is no possibility of contamination: is it actually the same knife that was found at the crime scene? is there any way that defendant's DNA could have ended up on the handle
after the crime was committed? etc.
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Should we even have a jury of our peers at all? Or should we rather have jurors that KNOW about crime, and see how the system can be abused and perhaps have come across a particular offender before. Or do we need them to be unbiased/biased like they are now? I.e. one juror could hate black people
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That's a very difficult question. On the one hand, it would seem obvious that experts are going to be better qualified to make a decision on something that falls within their area of expertise. On other hand, if the whole system is closed, and no one outside the legal profession is ever involved, what happens if that system becomes corrupt? Given how out of touch with reality judges sometimes appear to be, would you (assuming you were a rough working class sort of person) really want to have your guilt determined solely by some 70-year-old public-school-educated ponce in a silly wig? Would justice be done and be seen to be done?
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Should the jury be told about previous offences, normally they are not allowed to know about anything relating to other cases. I.e. has this person raped/killed people before? (Though I hear this is being looked into)
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"Members of the jury, do you find this convicted thief to be guilty of theft?"
Prejudicial?
If I were a juror then I certainly would want to know about past convictions - but then I'm an unusually analytical and dispassionate person, and I trust myself not to be unduly swayed by something like that. I'm not sure I would trust the average member of the public to be that impartial. The corner stone of the British justice system is the presumption of innocence: the person must be regarded as innocent unless it can be
proved that he is guilty beyond reasonable doubt; demonstrating that he is
likely to be guilty isn't enough.
On top of that, the law
should should allow for the possiblity of rehabilitation. Sometimes a person can be convicted of theft but then not to go on to steal again. One thing that must be avoided at all costs is a situation where, if a person is once convicted of a crime, it is
assumed that he will reoffend. If he's going to be found guilty of committing more crimes regardless of whether he actually commits them or not, then he might as well carry on committing crimes. It needs to be to his advantage not to reoffend.
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We live in a land that has been said it has one of if not THE best judicial system in the world. But is it fair? What are your thoughts on the system and the way that the jury is implemented?
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I'd be more inclined to tackle the adversarial aspect of the justice system first: rather than having one person whose job it is to prove guilt and a second person whose job it is to prove innocence (thus ensuring that
all the evidence presented is biased!) the focus needs to shift to a more balanced, neutral attitude of "let's try and find out what happened". Something like the French "examining magistrate" might be a step in the right direction.
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