Is There A Place For A Court Of Public On The Edges Of The...

sandyRoe | 19:58 Thu 05th Sep 2024 | Law

15 Answers

... judicial system?

I was thinking of the time Kerr Starmer was DPP and decided there wasn't enough evidence to secure a conviction against Jimmy Saville in the courts.

If he'd authorised the prosecution, knowing it had little chance of success, he would have placed Saville in the dock of the court of public opinion.

Saville's opportunity to continue with his abusive ways would have been limited.

Did Starmer make a mistake?

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sandyRoe

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Should read: A court of public opinion

Canary42

Mistakes are easy to spot with hindsight.

ToraToraTora

No that would be terrible, we all know public opinion is flawed and easily manipulated. Sure Starmer let Saville off but he must have thought that was right at the time.

Rosetta

Isn't being in the public interest part the decision to prosecute and/or whether there is a reasonable chance of success. I am sure NJ or others with knowledge of the law will clarify

New Judge

"Isn't being in the public interest part the decision to prosecute"

Yes it is. But the CPS undertakes a two stage test. In the first stage, Crown Prosecutors must be satisfied there is enough evidence to provide a "realistic prospect of conviction". Only if that test is satisfied do they go on to stage 2 - the "public interest" test.

The CPS lawyers decided that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Savile so the public interest test did not arise.

douglas9401

Surely some of the greatest legal minds of the time realised that victims and witnesses would come forward once the ball was rolling.

Any evidence could then have been tested while the perv was still around rather than all the empty words post mortem.

No wonder folk think he had friends in high places, possibly with their own interests in keeping it all covered up in the short term.

Did they fix it for Jim?

THECORBYLOON

"Keir Starmer was not informed when an investigator at the Crown Prosecution Service decided to drop a case against Jimmy Savile, sources have told the Guardian, despite the fact he led the institution at the time.

The Labour leader was unaware that a prosecutor had closed the case into the notorious child sexual abuser in 2009, nearly a year after he took over as director of public prosecutions (DPP).

He later reviewed the case in 2012 and came very close to rubber-stamping the original decision not to prosecute, before deciding at the last minute to commission his chief legal adviser, Alison Levitt, to conduct a formal inquiry."

Canary42

I share douglas's suspicions.

Peter Pedant

well as a DPP, he has duties for follow in deciding to bring a case

but Sandy what you are really asking is - can we make it so the verdict in court is NOT the guilt finding point ?

Yes we most certainly can - The guilt finding process as er a process

arrest -> charge goes to case goes to verdict goes to poonie

arrest - Japanese - you dont get arrested until you confess ( sweden too poss)

charge - 1793 reign of terror ( etes vous Anne Marie? Oui - - - - Mort). The chance of chop-chop if you were arrested during the terror was high ( like no one survived)

case - here you are saying a guiltfinding process can take place in just bringing a case even if doomed to fail

verdict - our current system

poonie - witch drowning I suppose, it they die then they were a witch

a standard analysis in any criminology book ( see chapter on deviant sociology)

well you wanted an analysis -- this is one