The Prosecutor's Diaries: In Pursuit Of The Truth

“It is difficult to prove a causal relationship between permissible investigative and interrogatory deception and testimonial deception.  Police freely admit to deceiving suspects and defendants.  They do not admit to perjury, much less to the rationalization of perjury.  There is evidence, however of the acceptability of perjury as a means to the end of conviction.  The evidence is limited and fragmentary and is certainly not dispositive” (Skolnick, 1982).

Justice is the concept of moral rightness that is based on equality, access and fairness. This means that the law is applied equally, understood by all people and does not have a particularly harsh effect on an individual. In Australia, the adversary system is used as a means to achieve justice by proving the accused, beyond reasonable doubt, committed the crime. The criminal trial process has many features which aim to fulfill the requirements of achieving justice. These elements, though considers equality, fairness and access, are flawed in practice. Flaws such as the handling of evidence, jurors not understanding instructions, inadequate funds for legal

In the R. v. Stinchcombe case, a lawyer was charged with breach of trust, theft and fraud. His former secretary was a Crown witness at the opening of the investigation. She provided relevant evidence towards the defence. Former to trial, she was interviewed by an RCMP officer and a tape‑recorded statement was taken. Far along during the progress of the trial, she again was interviewed by a police officer with a written statement taken. The defence counsel was notified of the occurrence but not of the statements. His request for a disclosure was declined. However, throughout the trial, the defence counsel acknowledge without a doubt that the witness would not be called by the Crown and required an order that the witness be called or that the Crown disclose the main statements to the defence. The trial continued and the accused was found guilty of breach of trust and fraud. Conditional stays were entered with respect to the theft counts. The

The purpose of this full advice on evidence is to defend client William Hague. The client is on trial for murder under section 302 of the Queensland Criminal Code (henceforth known as QCC). Under section 305 of the QCC the client may be facing life in prison. Queensland’s Supreme Court trial division shall hear the potential case. Persuasive burden of proof is on the prosecution to prove that, beyond a reasonable doubt, the client committed the murder. ‘Beyond a reasonable doubt’ may not be directed, defined or elaborated to the jury. The client possesses an evidential burden to raise any defences beyond a reasonable doubt.

Australian law is greatly influenced by English Law, being the foundation to the Australian Law System that shaped our country to the democratic and unbiased country known today. Australia has adapted the adversary law derived from English Law, it is when two contrasting sides in a case present their evidence and argument in court, this occurs with an unbiased third party overviewing the cases (Hamper et al., 2009). The Lin Family Case was over viewed by two third parties; the Jury and Justice Elizabeth Fullerton, the opposing sides is Mr Xie and the witness is Detective Constable Anthony Ryan who investigated the crime scene (Visitation, 2015). The adversary system ensures a fair verdict of the case put forward thus, a particular side at no time has a unfair upper-hand.

Rules of evidence ensure, in the adversarial system, that the jury is not distracted by irrelevant material and the court does not hear any inappropriate evidence in the form of unreliable or illegally obtained evidence, opinion evidence, hearsay evidence and bad character evidence (with the exception of propensity evidence) . Ultimately, irrelevant material that would confuse the issue cannot be introduced, therefore ensuring an individual’s right to a fair trial. Contrarily, there is less reliance on strict rules of evidence and procedure in the inquisitorial system - the Judge is aware of character reports and past record and is privy to all evidence and then decides which evidence is relevant to the case. This could mean that biases are formed against the accused that could be out-dated or inaccurate, leading to an unfair trial . Therefore Western Australia’s current evidentiary regulations, assure that accused parties are taken at face value, and that justice is issued, built entirely on a case-to-case basis

The currently effective laws in the UK and Australia grant the jury in charge no access to previous criminal record of the defendant. While the law makers argue that this rule is to prevent the accused person from disadvantageous prejudgment, other lawyers are no disputing over this claiming that the jury should be given all the past details before he or she reaches the final decision. Agreeing this law article is purely for protective purpose, I, on the other hand, firmly believe that the past facts should also be put into consideration such as the seriousness and frequency of his committing crime.

(1)Criminal justice systems around the world work to try and keep community’s safe and operating smoothly and functionally – by each community’s cultural definitions of such things. Whether it is proactive police work, or reactive police work, the criminal justice system works to remove crime from our societies and foster a mutually beneficial relationship with the public. However, despite the criminal justice systems best efforts – or what some would argue mediocre efforts – it still happens that the convicted in a criminal case has been erroneously accused and punished resulting in a wrongful conviction. Wrongful convictions are not only harmful to the wrongfully accused, but also to society and the criminal justice system itself. According

complaint was either files by a citizen or by following an arrest made by the

May and Powles view evidence as ‘something’ which tends to prove or disprove something else. In the context of a trial this consists of information placed before the court for the purpose of proving or disproving facts in issue. Beecher-Monas states that in a system based on the rule of law and which aspires to ‘truth’, the accuracy and reliability of such information is essential. The mechanisms available to the court to determine the latter, centre on the presentation of evidence under oath, cross-examination and the observation of witness demeanour .

Evidence is an integral detail in any legal case, evidence is what determines the length of sentence and evidence is what sways any jury. But can the presumable presented documentation be completely trusted in all cases? Misrepresented facts are common in the courtroom as well as in the world. No revision within the criminal justice system, and the lack of strict procedures and high standards are producing an arena for faulty facts. It is essential that the judicial system develop a more trustworthy protocol for evidence and that the community keeps informed.

On March 30th, 2016 I attended the court room of Judge Collin Long, the Pulaski Associate Circuit Judge of the 25th Judicial Circuit Court. I was there from 9 am to 11am and then again from 1pm to 3pm. During the day in the courtroom I found that court is much like the military, 99% of the time it is extremely mundane and 1% of the time it is eventful.

“Witness for the Prosecution” superbly demonstrated a realist view of the operating procedures in a courtroom. The actors within the courtroom were easy to identify, and the steps transitioned smoothly from the arrest to the reading of the verdict. The murder trial of Leonard Vole provided realistic insight into how laws on the books are used in courtroom proceedings. With the inferior elements noted, the superior element of the court system in “Witness

This memo addresses the issue of whether this office has sufficient grounds to launch an investigation into the events that took place in Minoropolis.

In an imaginary world the law would always give the correct results but in a real world it’s the other way. When they don’t which way do they tend to err? Which way do we want to err? We want the law to err on the side of acquitting guilty people rather than convicting ones. It is generally accepted that the price of a fair Criminal Justice System will be acquittal on a technicality of those who have committed criminal offences or because of a failure of evidence, where as conviction of the innocent is