History of convictions

[dilbert]

Re. the recent announcement that courts in England and Wales may be told of previous criminal convictions in cases of theft and child-abuse... can anyone explain why this is a good idea?

It seems to me that this will colour the thinking of jurors, and influence them to find guilty in cases where the charge(s) were not proven beyond reasonable doubt. As certain commentators have suggested, this will simply lead to in increase in unsafe convictions which are overturned at appeal.

So please... why is this anything other than a very bad idea?

[Oneeyedvic]

the main thinking behind it is in court, on a jury, you must think the person on trial is "guilty beyond all reasonable doubt". This is not an easy decision to make. It also means that people who look good in a suit and can emply a decent solicitor can get away with a lot as none of their past can be taken into account.

As a scenario: a man is arrested in the street by police following a rape. He pleads not guilty, puts a woman trhough a terrible ordeal, his solicitor makes out she was a slapper etc, etc. He claims it was all consentual.He gets off as the Jury was not totally convinced - they may suspect he was in the wrong, but you never know. Now take into account he has been found guilty of raping 3 other women. Does this predjudice the jury? - yes it probably does? Is it relevant to the case in hand? - yes it probably is.

Yes, there are miscarriages of justice (and in all likelihood there always will be), but equally, there are a lot of people who are undoubtably guilty of crimes that are getting away with it.

 

[Philtaz]

I think it is a good idea for the following reasons.  History/past experience has shown that those two offender groups(child molesters and thieves) are the most likely to re-offend, and often do so with impunity.  Does anyone know a thief/burglar who ceased such activities having been caught the first time?  There aren't many.

As for paedophiles/child molesters they are the most cunning of offenders because of the very nature of their victims i.e. they carry out their predatory crimes on children.  Children are easily manipulated and a skilled and manipulative defence barrister can make the evidence of a child lose its impact in court(as well as putting the child through further emotional and psychological trauma), therefore I believe it is right that these types of offenders should have their previous convictions made available to the jury. 

[dilbert]

Thanks for the responses so far, although I am not convinced... let's take the case of the recidivist paedophile... I am prepared to accept that past form may constitute circumstantial evidence, however my fear is that where a jury is prejudiced (as oneeyedvic happily accepts) the most likely result is an overturned verdict on appeal. Now whose interests are served by that? Certainly not the victims.

[Drewhound]

I'd be inclined to agree with you dilbert but as Oneeyedvic says there will always be miscarriages and I think the more information the jury has the better able they are to make the right decision

[el duerino]

ah but in this case would they be innocent until proven guilty? certainly if I was told a paedophile had made several attacks in the past, I would almost definitely start with my assumption based on guilt unless the evidence proved otherwise. and then we have lost one of the pillars of democracy and the legal system non?

[Oneeyedvic]

With paedophilia being such an emotive subject, someone accused is guilty until proven innocent - mud sticks.

There was a case I read about a few months ago where someone was found to have had 3 images of child porn on his pc. It could be proved that at least one of those had not been viewed. The man was a normal, run of the mill chap. It is suspected that the files were part of a virus (and isn't that a scary thought). He had to move etc as he was presumed to be guilty.

 

[stoo_pid]

It is a difficult one.  For me personally I have always felt jurors should be told of previous convictions for two reasons:

1. Juries have to decide whether the accused is guilty beyond all reasonable doubt.  If there is evidence that someone has committed the same crime at least once in the past, I believe a more realistic judgement can be reached when examining the current evidence.
2. It is common for the defence to use character witnesses to say how the accused has never been in any trouble before, been nice to his neighbours, does a lot of work for charity etc.  This is used as evidence & the aim is to plant the seed of reasonable doubt in the mind of each juror.  If that is allowed then the prosecution should also be able to call on character witnesses who can testify how they were hurt by this person on other occasions.

I agree with el duerino to a point.  But juries consist of 12 people.  There is already a chance that 1 or more of those people will already have decided whether the accused is guilty based purely on their skin colour or their general appearance.  However, there will also be intelligent level-headed people on the jury who will consider the ALL the evidence carefully before delivering a verdict.  I don't think that having more knowledge about someone's activities will undermine the effectiveness of a jury's ability to make the correct decision.

[WaldoMcFroog]

I'm no legal expert but is it really possible for a defence lawyer to imply that their client is a well behaved chap with a good record if they've got previous? Surely that's perjury? If the defendant has never been prosectuted, then that is a more complicated issue...

[stoo_pid]

Sorry WaldoMcFroog I didn't mean to imply that someone with previous could have a witness say they've never been in trouble before (although they are still allowed to have someone say other positive things, for example, that they do a lot of work for charity). 

The point I meant to make was that if it's OK to have character witnesses for the accused when they've not been in trouble before, the prosecution should also be allowed, in other cases, to bring in witnesses who have been previously wronged by the accused.

 

[jimmer]

It is a very bad idea. It sounds good doesn't it, just find someone who has commited these crimes before, tell the jury, oh he's done it before, convict. Evidence should be used to convict and past behaviour is not evidence. Before shouting "liberal dogooder" please remember that convicting the right person for a crime is in the best interest of the victim. Trying to mop up loads of crimes in one go and sealing easy convictions is not in the interest of crime prevention or victim rights. Past convictions should only be taken into account on sentencing.

 

jim

[LeMarchand]

To be honest, I don't know whether it's a good idea or not. I've done Jury Service twice, and while I obviously can't go into any detail, one of the cases was on a highly emotive issue and most of the jury were ready to hang the accused themselves while one of the others - where I felt that there was a lot more evidence against the accused - the rest of the jury (many of the same people) went for "not guilty" as there wasn't 100% proof. If the second person had had past convictions for (say) paedophilia, even though they were in court for something different, I'm pretty sure that they would have been found guilty within minutes. However, just because someone has a history of one sort of crime doesn't necessarily mean that they will commit a different sort.

 

That said, I think it is more likely that someone will reoffend in a similar vein, but I also think that it is more likely that the police will look to ex-offenders as suspects.

[kaz35]

Hear, hear, Philtaz.  Totally agree. 

[Philtaz]

Thank you kazzy.

 As usual on these sorts of threads there are still hardly any posts regarding the rights/welfare of the victims of thieves/burglars and paedophiles. 

[LeMarchand]

As usual on these sorts of threads there are still hardly any posts regarding the rights/welfare of the victims of thieves/burglars and paedophiles.

 

Surely those that are in court in this discussion have yet to be proven guilty of any crime? Therefore a discussion of their "victims" is (at this stage) irrelevant and shows a good deal of predjudice against someone who may just have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[Philtaz]

Well as we're discussing convicted thieves and child molesters who have previous convictions and as to whether these convictions are to be disclosed then they surely already have been convicted of crimes on previous occasions?

We are not discussing those who are in court for any offence for the first time we are discussing criminals with previous convictions for the above offences are we not?