An interesting Freedom of Information response from the Criminal Cases Review Commission for England and Wales, where the reason why convictions were quashed is given;
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/reque...ges_of_justice
"...the following comes from an analysis of the cases of the 78 individuals whose convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal between 1st April 2006 and 31st March 2009 following referral by the Commission....They are broken down here according to the principal reason for the Commission’s referral:
• New Expert (non- medical) evidence: 7 (covering a range if issues from DNA to false confessions and psychiatric reports).
• Discredited expert witness: 3 (this is a single case with three co-defendants).
• New medical evidence: 3.
• Unreliable witness / miscellaneous new witness: 11 (basically where new information about a witness, often but not always the complainant, or new witness testimony has been obtained to undermine the safety of the conviction.)
• Non-disclosure of material to the defence -13 (the accidental or deliberate non-disclosure, by prosecuting or investigating authority, of material which might have assisted the defence or undermined the prosecution and which the disclosure rules say the defence should have had access to).
• Misconduct by police or other authorities (such as HM Customs and Excise) – 15 (15 individuals involved in six actual cases)
• Judicial / process failure: 10 (issues such as errors in summing up, jury directions, not making alternative counts available for the jury to consider – this includes two cases involving a ruling by the House of Lords to clarify a point of law about causation in manslaughter conviction)
• One case was referred on grounds of defence incompetence.
• One was a magistrates’ court case related to planning law."
If you add together new evidence and non disclosed evidence, then the most common cause of a miscarriage of justice is the police failing to properly investigate and/or disclose all the evidence.
I have just finished reading this book about a teacher falsely accused of sex offences. The police were not at all interested in the exculpatory evidence and ignored everything that pointed to the teacher's innocence.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/p...warr-cbjv6fjgx
There should be more research into the causes of miscarriages of justice and action taken to rectify them.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/reque...ges_of_justice
"...the following comes from an analysis of the cases of the 78 individuals whose convictions were quashed by the Court of Appeal between 1st April 2006 and 31st March 2009 following referral by the Commission....They are broken down here according to the principal reason for the Commission’s referral:
• New Expert (non- medical) evidence: 7 (covering a range if issues from DNA to false confessions and psychiatric reports).
• Discredited expert witness: 3 (this is a single case with three co-defendants).
• New medical evidence: 3.
• Unreliable witness / miscellaneous new witness: 11 (basically where new information about a witness, often but not always the complainant, or new witness testimony has been obtained to undermine the safety of the conviction.)
• Non-disclosure of material to the defence -13 (the accidental or deliberate non-disclosure, by prosecuting or investigating authority, of material which might have assisted the defence or undermined the prosecution and which the disclosure rules say the defence should have had access to).
• Misconduct by police or other authorities (such as HM Customs and Excise) – 15 (15 individuals involved in six actual cases)
• Judicial / process failure: 10 (issues such as errors in summing up, jury directions, not making alternative counts available for the jury to consider – this includes two cases involving a ruling by the House of Lords to clarify a point of law about causation in manslaughter conviction)
• One case was referred on grounds of defence incompetence.
• One was a magistrates’ court case related to planning law."
If you add together new evidence and non disclosed evidence, then the most common cause of a miscarriage of justice is the police failing to properly investigate and/or disclose all the evidence.
I have just finished reading this book about a teacher falsely accused of sex offences. The police were not at all interested in the exculpatory evidence and ignored everything that pointed to the teacher's innocence.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/p...warr-cbjv6fjgx
There should be more research into the causes of miscarriages of justice and action taken to rectify them.
via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/2UiDZ0d
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