aprèsSci

There’s an article on the BBC about this bloke, Mario Celaire, who has been convicted of Murder under new Double Jeopardy laws.  It sounds like he was probably guilty but he had already been acquitted nevertheless sooner or later these new laws are going to cause an innocent man to go to jail.

The new laws state that someone can be re-tried after acquittal if “compelling new evidence” comes to light thus removing a protection which over hundreds of years have saved thousands of people from bullying state interfearence.

What prompted these laws were that some of people were coming out of court having been found not guilty and they were admitting their crimes.

This is a weak argument in favour of removing Double Jeopardy protection after all bad though it may be to have the man who raped you walking free when everyone knows he was guilty it still seems rather better than having the man who raped you walking free with everyone wondering whether or not you were lying.

Also idea of “compelling new evidence” seems to undermine the presumption of innocence a bit because to me compelling new evidence means evidence which basically shows that they were wrongly acquitted which in turn means that a judge has sent the message to the new jury that the evidence suggests the defendant is guilty.  And you can’t solve this by not telling the jury in fact that just spreads the presumption of guilt more widely.

But the most important point is that for every extra criminal this law locks away there are hundreds of innocent people who don’t get proper closure.  Their lives, already blighted by wrongful accusations, now further hurt by the fact that they will never be able know that their ordeal is finally over.  The locking up of the one extra criminal isn’t worth all the destruction it does to countless other people’s lives.

To quote the family of the victim of this Celaire bloke:

“It is a victory for everyone who feels that they have been let down by the justice system.

“This double jeopardy will give people the chance to say, ‘We can go back and fight again, we won’t give up.’”

Or put another way:

“They can go back and fight again, they won’t give up”