Shropshire Routes to Roots

Murderous Mapp: Principles of Justice

You may also like to view a glossary of words, terms and roles used in court.

Introduction

Have you ever heard of Sherlock Holmes? He was a fictional detective who had the phrase, "when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth".

What does this mean?

It means that in solving a case, such as a murder, he would gather clues. He would use these clues to work out who could not have been the killer. Whoever was left, must have been the criminal.

The courts work a bit like this.

Beyond reasonable doubt

For someone to be found guilty, it has to be shown (proved) that they are unlikely to be innocent.

This is known as making a case 'beyond reasonable doubt'. The chance (or doubt) of the accused not having done the crime is very unlikely (or unreasonable).

Presumption of Innocence

For this to work, a person is thought to be innocent unless they can be proved to be guilty. A person must be found guilty because of the facts of the case alone, not because a jury likes or dislikes them.

Look at the two examples below. In each case, would you be more or less likely to find the accused person guilty or innocent?

• Your best friend is accused of stealing a watch from some one you don't like.
• The star player in the football team you support is accused of robbery. If found guilty, he will go to jail for a year and miss the whole season.

In both instances, you would not be allowed to be on a jury. This is because your feelings might affect your judgement. You might not judge them based only on the evidence.

An example case

Imagine you are in the playground. You find that your mobile phone has gone missing. You see a boy, who is new to the school, called Jack. Jack is using a phone which looks like yours. You walk up to Jack. Do you?

• Believe that the phone is probably yours. You have lost yours, and Jack's phone is the same model. Jack is probably dishonest and so you take the phone from him and start using it.
• Think that the phone is probably his and that Jack is probably honest, but that the phone could be yours and Jack might be the thief. You let him keep the phone whilst you investigate further.

In the first example you are assuming that he must be guilty. But what would happen if you took the phone from him and then after using it you realised that it was not yours after all? Now you would be a thief. You took something that belonged to Jack without any reason other than your own suspicions. You failed to put the case 'beyond reasonable doubt', because it is quite possible that two people might have the same type of phone.

In the second choice you are presuming innocence. You think that Jack owns a phone which happens to be the same model as yours. You make no judgements without evidence. If you could then show that Jack's had the same phone numbers in the phone book as yours, then the case would have been proved 'beyond reasonable doubt'. The chance of two people having the same type of phone with exactly the same numbers is very small.