Apropos of nothing in particular, Keith Ng interviews a lawyer and devotes the first post of his new blog to the question of why prior convictions are inadmissible as evidence. The basic reason is to preserve the defendant's right to a fair trial, and ensure that they are tried on the allegations in question, rather than on their past. While this may sometimes lead to situations which simply scream out that there was a miscarriage of justice (Icehawk gives a good example in this comment), the flip side is that allowing such information would vastly increase the chances of someone being wrongly convicted on the basis of past offences, and simply make it far too easy for the police to stich people up. Which rather defeats the whole purpose of a justice system.
A core principle of our justice system is that it is better for ten guilty men to go free rather than see an innocent punished. I think that that's a good principle, and I think that anyone who can put themselves in the shoes of that innocent would agree. Unfortunately, it's a lossy principle - it means that some people escape justice and "get away with it" - but that's just the price we pay.
Yes but why are convictions the only element of a person's past that - apparently - can't be disclosed in court. If such information leads to the risk of prejudicing a trial, why - to use a purely hypothetical example - doesn't something like failure to get a conviction in a previous case pose the same risks?
ReplyDeleteWhy - to use another similarly hypothetical example - is it possible to bring up a women's previous sexual history in a court case without offending against this principal of judging each case on its own merits.
A lot of people are angry at present; not because they oppose the ideals of reasonable doubt, or judging each case on its actual merits, but because of the apparent institutional sexism in our justice system.