h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This entire entry is so crushingly inaccurate it'd make Lord Denning swivel in his coffin.

Initially, and most forgivably, it is not possible to identify a 'UK' system with respect to criminal justice. Scotland is widely different from England & Wales & Northern Ireland has its own complexities also.

To proceed more substantively, it is incorrect to say that in the UK, serious crimes can be retried after an acquittal. The Criminal Justice Act 2003, Part 10 concerning Retrial in Serious cases, does not apply to Scotland. If you don't believe me, see s 337 of the 2003 Act.

"Double jeopardy also means that individuals won't be brought to trial on little or no evidence. If police bring a weak, half-formed case with no evidence to court, the accused may be acquitted and the police are not permitted to prosecute them again. Because of this, people are rarely prosecuted unless there is sufficient incriminating evidence."

While I'm not one to say "never" blithely, it is impossible to bring a prosecution on the basis of no evidence. Admittedly, the line of 'enough' evidence in England is difficult to draw. Moreover, police no longer prosecute since the creation of the CPS in the 1980s. The CPS guidelines mean that there must be sufficient incriminating evidence to even begin a prosecution. None of this really concerns double jeopardy. The idea you're getting at, I think, is that, only given one chance to convict, the axis of the state will ensure it gets it right.

You say that in "Specific cases where this has happened has lead to successful and unsuccessful calls to modify the double jeopardy laws to allow a person to be tried again if sufficiently important new evidence is discovered."

In the language of the Act, a mandate for re-prosecution only arises when "there is new and compelling evidence against the acquitted person in relation to the qualifying offence." s78.

I hope that has cleared up some of the complexities.

I'm quite flattered you joined the site just to point out the problems with this article. It's pretty wrong, not to mention out of date. My only excuse is that I was young and ignorant when I wrote it. I'm now old, though still fairly ignorant. And I have an unstarted assignment due on double jeopardy tomorrow, so I thought I'd come and read this for a laugh. I found problems with it almost immediately.

Isn't it still an incentive to have good evidence before prosecution though? Even in a serious criminal trial where you'd have a committal hearing first, it could still be encouragement? I need some points in favour of it!

I'm afraid I know barely anything about UK law (and didn't even realise there would be different systems within it).