I know that lawyers are paid big bucks to do all they can to assist their client, however disgusting the crime, but was anybody else appalled by Staurt Hall's lawyer yesterday when he came out with this:
Mr Aylett said his client had been arrested "as a consequence" of the investigations into Jimmy Savile, "who used young girls on a scale that is simply staggering".
He referred to the 1,300 complainants in the Savile case and said: "Instead, in the dock today is a frightened and bewildered 83-year-old man answering for the touching - no more, no less - of all of 13, not 1,300, victims over a quarter of a century ago."
It's not justification, it's mitigation and it's what he is paid for. He's not saying what Hall did was ok, he's reminding the presiding Judge that Saville molested a vast number of girls, and that any thoughts which the Judge may have in his mind in relation to the aforementioned should be contextualised in line with the seriousness of the offence in all the circumstances.
In other words, because Hall is linked with Saville because the former was arrested as part of Yewtree, Hall's barrister wanted to make sure that the Judge was well minded that he was not sentencing Saville, he was sentencing Hall.
If you ever need representation, you'll be thankful for this skill. Offenders are sentenced according to the facts, not the crime. If, God forbid, you go out one day, get a bit squiffy and stab a geezer during a fight, you'll be well pleased that you're sentenced to 15 years, rather than the 40 years given to Stuart Hazell for the same offence. During your trial (or hearing in mitigation, if you plead guilty), your Brief will do exactly the same thing, remind the Judge that you are a silly harmless buffoon who can't handle his drink, rather then a predatory monster who kills for sexual gratification and it is this sort of thing which will see you serve much less time than truly vile offenders who have, in broad terms, done exactly the same as you.
This comes up more and more often now when I tell people what I'm in training for, people keep asking me how I'd represent a paedophile or a rapist and, the answer is that there is always some doubt and that doubt must be examined. Ian Huntley's legal team (and many others besides) didn't expect to win, but they had to be there to put the prosecution to proof. If a guy is that guilty, then the prosecution will steamroller the defence and a conviction will follow. The real injustice is in cynical exploitation of the rules of evidence which allow key pieces of evidence to be excluded on technicalities. Drink drivers being allowed to keep driving on the basis that the evidential breath test was taken by a female officer in a room with a male suspect, it is therefore inadmissible as evidence and the prosecution collapses. All this despite the guy being 4 times the drink drive limit and a danger to himself and others. Still, it's an imperfect system, but it's a whole host better than Sharia Law, mob rule or a complete absence of criminal justice.
Matt is right. It should be remembered that lawyers do not merely represent their clients, they are there to ensure and maintain due process in the justice system, which may not be ideal, but without which we would probably be saying goodbye to any kind of justice.
Justice is always under threat, and not only from shortcomings in the system. The old view that it's better for a dozen people to be found not guilty than for one innocent person to be convicted will be ignored at our peril. Already there is unfair bias in the judiciary and in police procedures as a result of laws and rules instigated by pressure groups such as feminists.
Unfortunately, it will always be a struggle, to protect the innocent and wrongly accused on the one hand, and to ensure that evil is found out and brought to justice on the other, as well as to take account of, as Matt says, all the facts, circumstances and mitigating factors in each individual case:
agreeing with Matt makes me feel dirty, and not in a good way.
there's a reason that the burden of proof is always on the prosecution (at least in criminal cases) - it's to ensure as much as possible that the innocent don't get wrongly found guilty. It's up to the prosecutorial team to convince the jury that the accused is guilty beyond all reasonable doubt; that means that a good defence lawyer doesn't have to prove the innocence of his client - s/he simply has to cast doubt on his/her guilt. Like Matt says, it's not perfect, but it's hugely preferable to the other way around.
ATTORNEY : Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS : No.
ATTORNEY : Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS : No.
ATTORNEY : Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS : No.
ATTORNEY : So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS : No.
ATTORNEY : How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS : Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY : I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS : Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive AND PRACTISING LAW.
Friend of TorquayFans.com Member of the Month November 2020 Southampton Gull: "Well deserved"
Of course, anybody possessing at least average intelligence would be well advised (not by a lawyer, obviously) to represent themselves in court, as a 'litigant in person' (unless perhaps the case is extremely complex or is a criminal one). It will be less expensive, and no less likely to achieve the correct result.
It follows, therefore, that although physicians may heal themselves, you will hardly ever expect to see lawyers representing themselves in court..
Gullscorer wrote:Of course, anybody possessing at least average intelligence would be well advised (not by a lawyer, obviously) to represent themselves in court, as a 'litigant in person' (unless perhaps the case is extremely complex or is a criminal one). It will be less expensive, and no less likely to achieve the correct result.
Strongly disagree - if lawyers are to be represented as a bunch of sharks trying to twist the law in their favour, I at least want a decent shark on my side.
In any case, the fact is most people are completely clueless about the actual law. They think they have a fairly good understanding of what it all means, but that's not enough to use it in any kind of defence. Even relatively simple things like contract law aren't known about, simply because most people don't need to.
If you find surfing too difficult, it's your prerogative to ask a shark to help you. But, to a shark, a meal is a meal, whichever side of the surfboard you're on...
This relates to the law rather than to lawyers, but is relevant.
The Scottish Government wants to introduce a law to remove the requirement for corroborative evidence, whereby you can be found guilty merely because you have been accused. That's right. That's what it means. If you've been charged and brought to court, you can be found guilty without the need for any evidence to prove your guilt: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home ... s.21401980
Such changes in the justice system have been in force for some time in the USA and Canada, with many innocent people ending up in jail. A false accusation is all it needs. Nothing else. This kind of thing is becoming more prevalent everywhere.
This is the line adopted by the extremist British Press anyway. Who remembers that poor bastard landlord who was arrested over the Jo Yeates murder in Bristol a couple of years ago? He looked like a mad scientist, and he was arrested (but never charged) with Jo's murder (another man was subsequently convicted of the killing). The papers went nuts over him, calling him all the names under the sun, convinced that, simply because he'd been nicked, he MUST have done it. The irony is that these are the same papers which love to jump down the throats of Chief Constables of forces which arrest then release innocent people. The Met arrests too many 'innocent' black guys and it's institutionally racist. Avon and Somerset arrest a bloke because he looks a bit weird and he absolutely, irrefutably MUST be guilty because the police never get anything wrong. Make up your minds.
Read the report, Scorer, looks like a right clusterf*ck. Expect to see a mass clogging of the appeals system borne of low IQ males being convicted of rapes on the evidence of emotionally convincing girls, only then to lodge immediate appeals against conviction and sentence on the basis that both are unsafe given the lack of corroboration (at which point, the nature of corroboration changes slightly but crucially). It'll cause mayhem, it'll result in the mass conviction of men on the basis that they 'may' have raped a girl.
The vast majority of rape cases are not as those portrayed on TV, where the victim is beaten unconscious, violently raped then left for dead, they are cases of two pissed idiots getting jiggy, then the female of the pair regretting her decision. This isn't an anti-female rant, I support fully the genuine victims of rape through their fight to secure justice in a system which asks a lot of them. However, we MUST remember that the system asks so much with good cause. Justice based on anything less than absolute evidence (or something terrifyingly close) is no justice at all.
Have a look at the mess that has become of road traffic policing. It's now an automated process, where no human need touch the file. It's absolutely flabbergasting that this 'enforcement and punishment by robot' is allowed to happen. Still, thanks to the last Labour Government, the country is broke and the present incumbents have to raise some capital somehow. If only we had some gold to sell, eh Gordon...
You're right Matt, and it will probably get worse before it gets better. These are attacks (from politicians and the press) on some of the basic principles of justice. I have also had a quick look at the Carloway Review. Strangely, it's recommendations are absent from the report. At least I was unable to find them.
Modern feminism has evolved from a movement for equal rights into a totalitarian ideological belief system whose dogmas (eg. patriarchy, rape culture) have long since been proved to be false, and whose raison d'etre now seems to be promotion of women as the superior sex and a hatred for men, in much the same way that Hitler's Nazis, the 'master race', hated Jews.
The Scottish Government has apparently capitulated to their extreme demands without having properly considered alternative views, and without regard for the effects on the judicial system and the consequences for justice. The general public needs to be made aware of what is going on. Those who support these women's groups (and most men have a natural inclination to love and protect women) should beware their false statistics and devious propaganda, which, on the face of it, seem very reasonable, but which will come back to haunt them when their own innocent family members are thrown into prison, and which is already damaging society (look at the injustices which have emerged from the family court system).
