Soldato
- Joined
- 21 Jan 2010
- Posts
- 3,682
Last edited:
Nurse arrested for murdering babies
- Thread starter neocon
- Start date
Caporegime
I‘ve never been like that, I’ve always accepted a jury’s verdict as final. If found not guilty, that defendant is just another ordinary person to me. No judgement from me.
Many articles on the BBC but no idea about other places - https://www.bbc.co.uk/search?q=lucy+letby&d=news_ps.
Man of Honour
This is the rubbish you normally get on Facebook, "Why aren't the media reporting on such a subject?" and then I link to 100s of articles
Caporegime
It's quite a grey area I think. Suing the CPS would be a significant undertaking in terms of financial resources and legal representation. They would need to prove that there was never a real likelihood of prosecution on the basis of the evidence provided.
But in some cases it's not just guilty/not guilty, they can also give the verdict of not proven, they would then be found not guilty by the judge but it leaves doubt still lingering over the defendant
Edit: thought it was a UK wide thing but turns out it's just under Scottish law
Last edited:
Soldato
Not Proven is a Scotland only verdict which itself is being looked at being removed
Yeah i was just going to edit my post to say that i thought it was a UK wide thing but on further reading into it it is just under Scottish law
Soldato
I met one. And to make matters worse, we were in a jury. She was adamant the accused was guilty because his eyes were too close together. She absolutely would not change her mind. That's why I would never want to face a jury, there's always the chance you get a wild card.
Last edited:
Richard Dawkins said in one of his books he thought it best to get your case heard by a panel of top judges if you were innocent. A jury is made up of ordinary people often with their own biases and very little understanding of the law.
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 21 Jan 2010
- Posts
- 3,682
Jeez. That's terrible!
Caporegime
Not to mention terrifying... They live among us.
Man of Honour
I would have reported her, no way could I let that drop.
Not far from my experience of being on a jury.
I had one juror who latched on to the 'you must be absolutely certain to vote guilty' direction rom the judge, and decided the only way she could be certain was if she had seen the attack with her own eyes and therefore could only vote innocent.
But, somehow worse than that were the 3 or 4 other jurors who tried to bully her into voting guilty - telling her that the judge would eventually accept a majority anyway so there was no point.
And there were people who were convinced of guilt just from looking at him too. I believe someone used the phrase "he's definitely guilty of something".
Oh, and the guy who appointed himself chairman of the jury, but didn't know what unanimous meant so had to be hastily corrected when he told the judge we'd reached a decision.
In conclusion: I'm not sure you're right about these people being 'wild cards'.
Last edited:
Man of Honour
This last few years I have put people in two categories:
1) People who comment on Social Media by looking at the headline
2) People who read the story and then comment.
You'll find that the absolute vast majority, above 90%, do the first and should go nowhere near a court room.
Soldato
I would much rather face three magistrates than a jury. Unless of course I was blatantly guilty, then it's jury every time!!
Last edited:
Caporegime
Thats a very strange takeaway. A jurys verdict is literally just saying "there was not sufficient evidence to prove beyond doubt this person committed this crime". That could be due to mishandling of evidence or a million other things that mean it doesn't meet the burden of proof.
I was on a jury a few years ago for 2 guys who were guilty as hell. A lot of circumstantial evidence that would require a very very large slice of bad luck to be explained away legitimately. Unfortunately it didn't meet the burden of proof for a conviction. A month later one of the other jury members told me that both guys were sent down for a different (but almost identical) crime they were on trial for at the same time. They were career criminals. I didn't come away from that thinking "not guilty so clearly not absolute scumbags".
They were scumbags that had prior and I would have put a lot of money on them being guilty but thats not how the justice system works. Beyond reasonable doubt.
Last edited: