CrimLaw

---

Thank God for the Constitution

Our rights were at least somewhat frozen when the Amendments were added to our federal constitution. The British, whence came our "reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen," are not blessed with such guarantees.

As best as I can make out, the British are just about to have a disastrous curtailment of their rights. First, and most important, the proscription against double jeopardy is about to be nullified (or as the article proclaims "reformed"). They are going to abrogate it and replace it with a tripartite test:

"First, the police will not be allowed to reinvestigate the offence without the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, who must be satisfied that there is, or is likely to be, sufficient new evidence to warrant investigation. Secondly, no application may be made for a retrial without the consent of the DPP, who must be satisfied that there appears to be new and compelling evidence of guilt and that it is in the public interest for the application to proceed. Thirdly, the Court of Appeal must be satisfied that there is new and compelling evidence of guilt and that it is in the interests of justice to order a retrial."

Let's put this in a perspective that we Americans can understand. Think of the Ashcroft Justice Department and the Fourth Circuit operating under these rules. Trial, retrial, and trial again until the government got the "correct" result.

Second, they are trying to change their rules of evidence to allow the prosecution to prejudice the jury by introducing the Defendant's prior convictions as part of the reason for conviction. The author engages in a disingenuous argument that because positive character evidence can be used as evidence of innocence the record of conviction must be admitted as evidence and the record will not be used to overwhelm the jury's judgment of the evidence when the actual evidence is weak. Yeah, right. If the problem is that the Defendant enjoys such an unfair advantage why not try to change the rules so that positive character evidence cannot be used as evidence of innocence? Gotta be some reason that prosecutors salivate at the opportunity to introduce a Defendant's record - could it be because they think they can convict on character rather than evidence?

It's scary what's going on over there. Isn't their liberal party supposed to be in charge?

.