The imposition of the legal burden on the prosecution is a formality - Essay Example

?Running Head: Legal Issues Legal Issues s Legal Issues I. The imposition of the legal burden on the prosecution is a formality. In fact it is for the defense to prove innocence in the modern criminal justice system. With reference to the relevant statutory provisions, critically analyze the above statement. Legal matters are highly complex because there are a number of issues that need to be addressed before a verdict can be reached. The greatest complexity that lies when one is dealing with a legal issue is that burden of proof. Every man or woman, who is guilty of a crime the law, grants them an opportunity to defend themselves and provide sufficient evidences to prove their innocence. Therefore, those people who believe that legal burden of evidences is shouldered by the prosecution is largely a legal formality and it is in fact the defense that needs to proof the innocence of the defendant. This is most commonly known as evidential burden and is usually presented by the defense and subjected to further analysis by the prosecutor. A very important dictum by Viscount Sankey in 1935 forms of the basis of this legal argument is: “Throughout the web of the English criminal law one golden thread is always to be seen, that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner’s guilt subject to ...the defense of insanity and subject also to any statutory exception”. (Cooper, 2003, p. 2) The aforementioned statement takes the English Criminal system into account and describes how it is always the prosecution’s duty to prove the defendants guilt, hence the prosecution shoulders the burden of proving the guilt and assessing the credibility of the defendant’s proof. This clearly indicates that actually the burden of presenting the proofs of innocence lies with the defendant. Courts have placed the entire legal responsibility on the defendant ‘by necessary implication’. According to Ashworth and Blake, around 40% of the trails held at crown court actually require the defendant to prove his defense or at least one element of his offence to actually be cleared of all charges that are pressed against the individual in question. This is widely adopted form of jurisprudence and in many European nations the same practice is implemented. This can be further understood by taking the following statement in to account, which was given by European convention of human rights. It is stated, “Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law”. (Cooper, 2003, p. 3) Therefore, it is extremely lucid as to why the actual burden of trial is on the defendant because it is a constitutional right of every individual to defend him or her against any charges and effectively provide plausible evidences or alibi that completely exonerates them. Then as a formality, the persecution actually assesses and cross-questions the defendant to make sure that the evidences brought forward by the individual are reliable and sufficient enough for the court to reach a verdict. It is true that modern criminal justice system has changed immensely and now every individual whether guilty or innocent, do rights in order to protect their interests. The fact that now the criminal justice system provides every individual the latitude to have a say in their trial, they actually provide the evidences themselves and actually speed up the process by providing first-hand evidences and saves a lot of time for the court. This aspect of a criminal trail was further elaborated by the trial of Sachs J in State vs. Coetzee in 1997 trial; in the trail it was made clear that the more serious the offence is it is important that the defendant gets ample amount of say in the matter because the defendant’s entire life and future well-being is at stake. Therefore at a moral level it is only fitting that every individual gets a say in his trial and actually gets a chance to defend himself by providing evidence of his innocence. II. How far do you consider that the admissibility of bad character evidence in criminal trials favors the prosecution at the expense of the defense? Conventional criminal proceedings were often greatly influenced by the admissibility of the defendant’s bad character. This is a highly debatable subject as it is a constitutional right of every individual to have a right to privacy; therefore, any judgment that is passed on the individual during the criminal proceedings on the basis of his or her character, is a strict violation of the country’s constitution. Though, the admissibility of the bad character in evidence can seriously hamper the defendant’s case in front of the jury but the magistrate and the jurors must bear in mind that even though an individual may possess a bad character is not substantial enough evidence against to pass the guilty verdict. Before delving in greater intricacies of the subject, it is best to first understand how the law defines ‘bad character’ and what kind of repercussions it has on the criminal proceeding. The evidence of bad character can be used to undermine the both the defendant’s case and the credibility of the witnesses brought forward by the defendant. Hence, the definition of the term bad character is extremely broad and may refer to the individual’s involvement or disposition towards illegal activities. It may include former acquittal and other charges pressed against the defendant; however, there are certain exceptions applied to the evidence of bad character and it is highly important that the offence that the individual was charged with previously must have immense amount of pertinence to the offence the defendant is being tried for. (Crown Prosecution Service, 2008) However, the bad character evidence has been used a number of times against the defendant in order to weaken his or her case and often bias sets in amongst the jurors that leads to unfair conviction of an individual. Furthermore, in order to prove the defendant’s bad character in front of the court the prosecutor must present proper witnesses, that too credible ones to testify for the defendant’s bad conduct. As mentioned earlier, conventional court room proceedings almost always used the evidence of bad character in order to strengthen the prosecution’s case. However, the 2003 Criminal Justice Act provides a statutory scheme which provides comprehensive guidelines to deal with the evidence of bad character. (Crown Prosecution Service, 2008) The 2003 act repeals various statutory provisions pertaining to the evidence of bad character and has completely abolished the admissibility of the evidence of bad character is common law practices. The act is meant to protect the interest of both defendants and non-defendants; the act has taken up a more inclusionary approach to deal with such instances in criminal proceedings. The prosecutor needs to take in to account relevance of the misconduct carried out by the individual in question and as mentioned earlier, the previous offences should have immense pertinence to the offence the individual is being tried for. (Crown Prosecution Service, 2008) It is true that the prosecution uses the evidence of bad character to their benefit but this was only so in the past when there were not much regulations that were applied to such scenarios during a criminal proceeding. However, global jurisprudence has become highly sophisticated and there are a set of rules and guidelines that decide whether or not a former charge against the defendant is valid enough to influence the verdict; especially those offences that wee committed by the individual during his or her childhood or adolescence hold negligible importance during his or her trial. III. The rules of evidence only place unnecessary restrictions on the evidence which could be adduced at this trial. Discuss. Before the substance of the prose discuss in further detail as to how the rules of evidence restrict the trail of defendant, it is always best top first understand what exactly is meant by the ‘rules of evidence’. Rules of evidence are a set of guidelines that decide the consideration that every proof or evidence will be subjected to once they are presented in the court. The credibility and reliability of the evidences are assessed by the prosecution but the final judgment is actually conducted by the Judge or the Jury. The rules of evidence were actually developed by the Anglo-American Common laws and hence, they are highly important to make sure that the trial is fair and the individual in question is not wrongfully convicted for a crime, even though he is innocent. The guidelines take a number of things into consideration before the verdict is based on the evidence. Some of these guidelines are relevance, expert testimony, witnesses, opinions and physical evidence. These form some of the most fundamental aspects in order to decide whether or not the evidence is admissible in a trial. Criminal trials usually decide the entire fate of an individual; therefore, it is extremely important for the judges and jurors to exercise immense amount of caution when analyzing the reliability of gathered evidences. (Friedman, 2002) The testimonies gathered must be subjected to intense logical analysis and investigator must make sure that the individuals, who have testified in court, are reliable people and give first-hand accounts of what actually happened. However, it is highly intriguing that in case of rape, the law protects the victim from being subjected to questioning regarding their own sexual history. The aforementioned aspect is highly dubious as it largely focuses on the rapist and excludes the victim’s actions that might have lead to the rape. It is in fact highly dubious but it is only one facet of the argument and rules of evidence actually tests the reliability and validity of the evidences as accurately as possible. (Friedman, 2002) It is true that these rules of evidence actually prolong the criminal proceedings and is highly time consuming but it is also important carry it out in order to make sure that the defendant gets equal chance to voice his opinions and is effectively brought to justice. It is not always that these rules of evidence are always accurate and protect the innocent from getting convicted but most of the time, it also provides ample amount of time for the guilty to pervert the course of justice and may produce evidence that can seriously hamper the prosecution’s case. No matter how many negative points may be taken against the rules of evidence, but it is only meant to ensure a fair trail so that the innocent does not get wrongfully convicted. References Cooper, S. 2003. Human rights and Legal burdens of Proof. Sunderland: University of Sunderland & Web Journal of Current Legal Issues. Web. http://webjcli.ncl.ac.uk/2003/issue3/cooper3.html Crown Prosecution Service. 2008. Bad Character Evidence. London: Crown Prosecution Service. Web. http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/bad_character_evidence/ Friedman, L.M. 2002. American Law in the Twentieth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press. Read More