Thinking about yesterdays terrible events it seems that the British justice system is poorly set up to deal with defendants that are clearly guilty yet can still elect for a full trial at great expense to the taxpayer and great emotional cost to the families of the victims and the witnesses. Is this right?
I know we have a principle of innocent until proven guilty and tbh it goes against the grain to think this way but it seems to me that we have reached a stage now, (with forensics, surveillance techniques, cameras on every street, etc) leading to cases coming up every so often where the weight of evidence is just so overwhelming that we need a fast track process to determine whether a full jury trial on a not guilty plea is remotely justifiable and if not a scaled down process to consider any mitigating circumstances should be triggered.
Dangerous ground perhaps but we know that the two people involved yesterday did what they did so why should we now put the family of the deceased through the potential trauma of a full trial at which they are likely to make further political capital in an attempt to justify their actions.
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Shouted at the TV this lunchtime when the 2 with fresh blood on their hands and machete were described as "suspects" !!!!!
Maybe I need to review my understanding of that word...
They would probably want a trial so they could spew out more hatred.
I'd rather they were tried properly even if it takes a bit longer to bring the case to court than some would like and I'd also rather that the case against them is proven properly - that is above and beyond all reasonable doubt. If you rush trials you potentially damage that making convictions less than secure.
The whole principle here is that we have an opportunity to demonstrate that our way of doing things is better than the instant dispensing of justice that terrorists prefer.
However, every contested case probably needs to be dealt with on the basis of a long and costly legal process I'm afraid. If it isn't, it would make the prospects for a guilty verdict being overturned on appeal much more likely.
I know from what I used to do that some seemingly basic financial crime cases can take over two years to get to court. First there's the investigation. This can't be just the obvious stuff: You have to look for anything, anything at all, that might undermine your case. That includes being quite strict with the process of taking witness statements. Second there's all the forensics and proper management of the evidence. Third there's the charging process and the care that has to be taken to make sure that the proper charges will be laid (and that there are "back-up" charges in the alternative in case the original ones fall over for some unforeseen reason). Fourth there's the disclosure process when the defence gets the opportunity to review every single piece of evidence gathered during the investigation (including various early drafts of witness statements for example) and this disclosure is of ALL material harvested during the investigation not just that being used in the prosecution. This can take ages in complex matters. Then there's the defence disclosure of eg alibis, witnesses which might bring up new lines of enquiry. To give a guide to complexity, the CPS disclosure manual alone consists of 37 Chapters and 11 annexes!
Fifth The defence will try to play the insanity card - they nearly always do, so that will involve maybe court appointed shrinks asking what colour grass is (it seems even mad people know that grass is green and any other answer is an indication of malingering [in the legal sense] or living in Kentucky.)
Then, of course, there's the actual court process.....
Some stuff just takes time.
It just seems to me that in some (a few) cases the burden on the public purse could be eased a little where the defendent has zero realistic chance of the case being dismissed.
What elements would you skip?
What you might not be aware of is that the Justice & Security Act has just been given Royal Assent. One of the the things that this allows is "CMPs" - Closed Material Procedures, which seek to limit the amount of information that can be disclosed to the defence team. The JSA also allows secret trials in cases where there is a threat to national interests.