Dbl Jeopardy

OP

Lets ignore sentencing here ... its murder so compulsory life... the fact is should the trial even take place?

Reply 3

Scotsman1988

1

aye but does minimum term not need to be set?

There wont be a trial:

But the law was changed in 2005 and Dunlop, 43, pleaded guilty on Monday

Reply 4

OP

Dude this is not a thread to discuss the sentence, the discussion centres around the very fact of conviction... should he be convicted in this manner.

Sentencing wise its minimum of 12 years or something but yes the judge would set the minimum time h would allow release to be considerd, no more sentencing questions its not important.

Reply 5

Danny5876

1

I initially thought that one who is acquitted by a jury should not be tried for the same crime twice. However, by reading that article I think changing the law was a decent thing to do. On a moral point of view think how you would feel if a person like Myra Hindley or Ian Huntley got acquitted by a jury. Yet years later they admit the crime, and no Court in the land could not touch him. That is not justice.

Reply 6

Dimebag

There's not going to be a wave of wrongful convictions, this is a very small area - the CPS has the public interest test on bringing charges to trial so it's likely this will only happen very occasionally.

Personally I don't agree with it, it shows the limitations of our supposed cornerstone of justice, the jury trial.

Reply 7

Of course he should be convicted. If someone is acquitted of a crime and then later boasts about having actually committed the crime, I can not see how anybody could possibly feel that he should not be retried. He even pleaded guilty, it wasn't like there was some new evidence (other than his confession) on which he was convicted.

The fear is obviously that the CPS and police could start hounding defendants with multiple retrials with people being tried over and over again as each new little piece of evidence comes out. That, of course, would be unacceptable. However, this seems unlikely to happen as, to the best of knowledge, the new evidence needs to be extremely compelling in order to take the case to court again (e.g. a confession).

If people start getting convicted at retrial on the basis of tenuous evidence which has been found a decade or two later then I would be uncomfortable. As it is, if someone confesses to a crime and then pleads guilty at retrial, of course they deserve punishment, whether they've managed to fool a jury before or not.

Reply 8

Dimebag

Personally I don't agree with it, it shows the limitations of our supposed cornerstone of justice, the jury trial.

So, we should just turn a blind eye to these limitations?

Reply 9

OP

Personally I dont agree with recourse to new evidence found for crimes committed like 20 years ago (the ones where they never actually charged someone). IMO if you beat the system for 5 years (possibly 10) you have won, new advanced systems you couldnt foresee at your time and evade by using the most advanced technology at the time (such as wearing gloves so as not to leave prints) should not be allowed to convict these ppl.

Controversial, but come on ... let them win occasionally!

Reply 10

Lewis-HuStuJCR

IMO if you beat the system for 5 years (possibly 10) you have won, new advanced systems you couldnt foresee at your time and evade by using the most advanced technology at the time (such as wearing gloves so as not to leave prints) should not be allowed to convict these ppl.

Controversial, but come on ... let them win occasionally!

That seems a bit strange. Would you also say that if you were unaware of some new DNA techniques which had been around for a year or two but were still relatively unknown, evidence collected using those techniques should not be used to convict you as you did not know about them and so could not work a way around them?

Reply 11

OP

Nope, I dont agree that technological advances should be able to convict ppl like 20 years down the road, especially if they are completely reformed people now. Its a strange view but for some reason I have always held it.

Reply 12

Dimebag

TommehR

So, we should just turn a blind eye to these limitations?

Nope, we should get rid of it altogether.

Reply 13

OP

Dbl jeopardy is great in certain areas ... but in cases like the instant case I think its dodgy and conviction should be upheld.

Reply 14

Dimebag

Nope, we should get rid of it altogether.

But, assuming we are going to have to keep trial by jury, you agree that abolishing double jeopardy in certain cases is a good idea? I'd like to get rid of jury trial for a whole lot of reasons, but for a whole lot of other reasons that isn't going to happen.

Reply 15

Dimebag

TommehR

But, assuming we are going to have to keep trial by jury, you agree that abolishing double jeopardy in certain cases is a good idea? I'd like to get rid of jury trial for a whole lot of reasons, but for a whole lot of other reasons that isn't going to happen.

Correct.

Reply 16

Dimebag

Correct.

Ace. We're in complete agreement then. :biggrin:

Reply 17

Crux

Can it not apply both ways? For example, if somebody was wrongly sent down for murder, a crime they didn't commit but served their time and eventually released, only to go and find that persona and murder them for real this time. Before these changes, could they be rearrested for a crime that they had already been sentenced for and served their time?

Reply 18

OP