Tag: expert evidence

Are juries fair?

Once again trial by jury is coming under scrutiny.

Boris Johnson had promised a Royal Commission on Criminal Justice. It was never established. The former Justice Secretary Dominic Raab introduced a much mocked “Bill of Rights Bill” which contained an odd clause declaring that trial by jury was a right, except when it wasn’t. Mr Raab was sacked, his Bill was dropped and the appetite for legislation about criminal procedure faded.

However, times have changed. Against the background of a shrinking economy and a growing backlog of Crown Court cases Lord Leveson has been asked to conduct an “Independent Review of Criminal Courts.”

And this time, it seems, the government is likely to do something significant. It has juries in its sights. Continue reading “Are juries fair?”

National Disclosure Week: an occasion for celebration?

You may not have noticed that last week was “National Disclosure Week.” I had no idea that there was such a week until the Crown Prosecution Service started tweeting about it last Wednesday.

That the CPS is taking its disclosure duties seriously is of course a very good thing. Continue reading “National Disclosure Week: an occasion for celebration?”

Expert witnesses: a crisis in the criminal courts

Last month the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee published a report on the critical state of forensic science in the United Kingdom. Several private forensic science providers are close to financial collapse. At the same time the police are increasingly taking forensic science in-house – raising obvious questions of independence and impartiality – or outsourcing it to unregulated providers that do not met minimum quality standards.

“The evidence we received points to failings in the use of forensic science in the criminal justice system and these can be attributed to an absence of high-level leadership, a lack of funding and an insufficient level of research and development. Throughout this inquiry we heard about the decline in forensic science in England and Wales, especially since the abolition of the Forensic Science Service.”

Professor Claude Roux, President of the International Association of Forensic Sciences, told the Committee:

“When I was a student, England and Wales held, essentially, the international benchmark. It was the “Mecca” for forensic science. Some 30 years later, my observation from the outside … is that it has been an ongoing national crisis and, at this stage, is more of an example not to follow.”

This report was alarming enough, but the problem with expert evidence in criminal cases goes much deeper even than the alarming House of Lords report suggests. Continue reading “Expert witnesses: a crisis in the criminal courts”