Safe Speed Forums

On the news today was a report that the Home Secretary had effectively said that he would be changing the law so that people who prove that the police (or, presumably, police equivalents) had made technical errors in the prosecution of an offence would still be found guilty if the rest of the evidence was sound.

In my view, this would be an incredibly bad thing guaranteed to alienate the public from the police.

Just where would the line be drawn?

- Sorry, we forgot to send out the summons. OK, guilty in absence of the defendant.
- Sorry, we set the speed camera to 29mph instead of 35mph. Don't worry, they are all guilty anyway.

This is "guilty until proven innocent" by the back door.

He also wants to make it more difficult to appeal a decision and refuse compensation for wrongful conviction even if you are locked up between the first trial and the appeal. I bet the couple alleged to have poisoned their child with salt and subsequently freed enjoyed that statement.

I despair at this country. No, I correct myself. I despair at our current political class.

_________________
Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

..

_________________
Q. Are you a stupid fascist with limited reading skills or are you just a retard?

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't this Napoleonic law, like what the French have.
And aren't they introducing more and more law like this.

Perhaps this is not the idea of our government, but instructions from elsewhere?

_________________
Semper in excreta, nur quantitat variat.

Have also just had a reduction in the amount that can be paid out to those who suffered a miscarraige of justice.

_________________
Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

Ahh. But the money they save is going to be used to improve the judicial system - making it less likely to occur I presume..

Oh look, a squadron of pigs on a night time sortie over England...!

_________________
Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

No, they claim it's going to be used to improve compensation paid to vitctims of crime - never mind that the funding for that has already been lowered and that this won't make up the shortfall.
the compensation is apparently going to be capped at £0.5m, so if you've spent half a lifetime in jail for a crime you didn't commit, this will be full and 'adequate' compensation.....

Can someone explain the precise fiscal link between victims of crime and victims of miscarrages of justice?

all spin and nonsense.

Theres plenty of places he could go to save £5m before this.

its a disgrace

It might also be usefully pointed out that "Getting off on a technicality" is simply tabloid-speak for "prosecution failed to properly prove it's case".

So quite apart from what the Government would like to happen in cases where the CPS fail to do their homework properly, any attempt to allow unproven cases to succeed anyway would come up against a rather awkward stumbling block known as the European Charter of Human Rights...

_________________
CSCP Latin for beginners...
Ticketo ergo sum : I scam therefore I am!

I suppose its easy to generate an atmosphere of hysteria over the prospect of technicality loopholes being closed, but is it really such a bad thing? If the prosecution has proof beyond reasonable doubt that somebody commited an offence then why should that person get away with the whole charge simply because someone somewhere failed to dot an 'i' or cross a 't'.
In the current climate, an incorrectly compiled form can entirely negate the prosecution of serious, proveable offences and the case then becomes, not a question of whether the individual actually did it or not, but whether form 123X was correctly compiled. This is ridiculous IMHO.

There isn't a real one.



pretty much.



True, but they should still restore the proper funding to the Criminal Injures Compensation Authority



as with so much about this government.

The best way to stop people using "technicalities" or "loopholes" to avoid conviction (or tax, or [whatever]) is by not creating them in the first place. And the way to stop "loopholes" appearing is by minimising, so far as possible, the scope of legislation and regulation (i.e. to regulate ordinary behaviour only where it is absolutely necessary and with the lightest 'touch' that is consistent with the objective). That is of course pretty much the opposite of where this government (all governments generally) has been heading.

The simple and unavoidable fact is that as regulation increases, the scope to work round it increases. And where regulations have to interact (which will increasingly happen as the body of law increases), the scope for workarounds is multiplied.

Legislation should be aimed far more at promoting, encouraging and rewarding behaviours that are conducive to desirable outcomes rather than prohibiting behaviours that may (not necessarily will) produce undesirable outcomes. Again, this is quite the opposite of where the law in general is headed.

Today's Charles Clarke "joke" announcement is that after prisoners have served their sentences (as passed by a judge) some deemed "dangerous" will have additional restrictions placed upon them which have not been applied by the court system.

This latest announcement and the one which started this thread are the product of the Government's own folly.

They pass ill thought out laws (PACE might be an example) which are very complex and difficult for the law enforcement services to understand and operate. When this is proven all too true by the large prevalence of defendants being acquitted because the law has not been properly applied, the Government then seek to excuse non-compliance by passing further laws. Can't they see that the fault is with the body of exisiting laws and new ones are not needed.

My fear is that we, the public, have to comply with the exact letter of the law (even if we don't know what this is - ignorance being no excuse) but the legal authorities will be able to bend the rules and get an unjustified conviction.

Rigpig's point that "If the prosecution has proof beyond reasonable doubt that somebody commited an offence then why should that person get away with the whole charge simply because someone somewhere failed to dot an 'i' or cross a 't'." is answered by the comment "Well don't pass such stupidly detailed laws in the first place."

One of the problems with allowing deviations from clearly laid down procedures is that it wouldn't stop at situations like Rigpig notes above (which I have some sympathy with). Just how much slapdash police work would be allowed to be accepted? Yes, the forensic evidence didn't have a custody chain document correctly completed but we know she did it anyway.

_________________
Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

Malcolm and Observer,

Some interesting points there



And..




I see a clear distinction between a 'loophole' and a 'technicality'. Certainly this government has endeavoured to sort out 'problems' by laying down more legislation much of which is nigh on impossible to enforce. The anti-hunting bill is case in point; so many exclusions that the definition of hunting with dogs becomes blurred and indistinct, however if the law is vague or poorly defined that that is a completely different matter to the point I'm making.



Sorry but this is an Appeal to Fear fallacy, technicalities are not the same as incompetence. If errors of procedure lead to a form having to be resubmitted because of an honest mistake (mis-spelled name where the identity of the individual is otherwise not in doubt) then that is one thing. Incompetence which leads to evidence (and by implication proof) upon which the prosecution rests being contaminated is something completely different.

Appeal to Fear Fallacy?

The recent US/UK reciprocal law which allows extradition to the USA for persons suspected of major crimes was well supported as most people thought it would be used to extradite suspected terrorists to face the courts. In fact, it has been used on businessmen accused of financial crime.

Mission creep? An invevitable result of clever lawyers exploiting the legislation? The Law of Unintended Consequences?

So, in my hypothetical case of the forensic evidence, how bad do you think the labelling and paperwork could be before it was dis-allowed as evidence? Misdescribed? Wrong Date? It was an honest mistake, your worship, I did get the defendant's name and address wrong.

_________________
Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

You're still using as your example 'soiled' evidence or legal loopholes to prove your point. In the case of the former if the mistake contaminates evidence then the proof is in doubt, I'm not arguing that point. In the case of the latter then as I said above, loopholes are errors in the law, not procedural errors.
I'm talking about a spelling mistake on a procedural form (one of perhaps many dozens of forms required to process the case) where the mistake is clearly identifiable and nothing else is in doubt.
Miscarriages of justice is one thing, spelling mistakes is another.

Unless you have knowledge of some specific example, in which case the following may not apply, I think you are labouring under a misapprehension.

"De minimis non curat lex" - the law does not concern itself with trifles. In specific terms, there is a 'slip rule', which means that errors of the type you describe can be corrected at any stage and will not be fatal to a prosecution case (presumably works both ways).

Also looking at more detailed press releases it would appear that technicalities are likely to include forensic evidence where consultants are offering an unproven opinion rather than fact (much like the consultant in the sudden infant death cases) and other more pertinant technicalities such as a break in the chain of evidence.

_________________
Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk

Perhaps by using that example I am (knew that would be a bad idea ).
I'm going to close my contribution to this thread by maintaining that it should not be right that a defence's case may rest solely upon disputing some part of the process by which the prosecution was brought because there is absolute proof that the defendant actually did commit the offence; proof that the defence has no intention of even attempting to refute.

AH - THEY didn't get a chance in the 1940's - but now they might

_________________
lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

For Government, read Junta

_________________
Aquila



Licat volare si super tergum aquila volat...