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

The conviction of Levi Bellfield for the murder of Milly Dowler shows shortcomings in the legal system. Milly's sister said that seeing her family cross-examined in court was worse than hearing that Milly's body had been found! And all this happens at a time when rich footballers can buy superinjunctions to cover their indiscretions; where's the justice?
What's more, the verdict will make no difference to Bellfield, who is already serving a life sentence.

How would you change things? In fact, if you had to think radically, is there an alternative to the legal system itself?

trial by ordeal

trial by combat

judge dredd

It's the best we have. Nothing's perfect. Or what Taff said.

In England we already have some alternatives to the prosecution/defence in court system. Fixed penalty fines, for example. You *can* appeal against them in court, but most people don't.

The youth justice system works a little differently to the criminal justice system, I believe, with more emphasis on restorative justice and supervision orders. That can be also be difficult for victims.

I would like to see confrontation reduced in politics. But I don't see how it can be removed from the justice system. If a defendent is not going to plead guilty, then his lawyers have to try everything they can to prove his innocence. And that's never going to be nice. But what's the alternative? Not give the defendant that opportunity? That's not fair either. He might have been innocent, that's why there had to be a trial.

It's also to some extent up to the judge to decide whether a line of questioning is relevant or appropriate. I didn't follow the trial day by day so I don't know if the judge was at fault here in allowing the questions that were asked of the family. But if the judge *was* at fault, that doesn't necessarily mean the system is too.

Mol

>>It's the best we have.

Well we're constantly sold the idea that this is the best system (usually by the very people who make handsome profits from it), but what about the fact that the legal system costs us all a small fortune; where's the justice in that? It feels perverse to spend so much on convicting and then incarcerating criminals compared with what we spend on the victims.

Fair enough quotes.

But I think it's incredible that so much fuss is made about this *one* case..and people talk about something so fundamental as a change in our legal system..based on that.

Certainly the BBC have been wittering on in that tone..like some tabloid newspaper this morning. Lots of mentions of 'Twitter.

'Justice' is fundamental. In terms of spending money..I simply don't care compared with nonsense like the unwinable war in Afghan.

(I was once a witness in court to do with a car accident. The wrong side called me as a witness..for some reason..and I had absolutely no problem telling the *truth* in court. And yes that's also *one*case; it wasn't even mentioned in the local newspaper in those days.

In another case which I ducked appearing as a witness for stress reasons, the police told me exactly what the description was of an assailant. I got it very wrong..cos it was late at night. I would be expecting a very vigorous cross- examination about that..if I'd gone to court. I would have told the truth that the police had coached me.

And yeah these are one off cases..that's all...

I haven't followed the 'Millie Dowler' case on the media....and in any case all I hear is tabloid style reporting about it.

The debate here really ought to be about the appropriateness of an adversarial system of justice based on the Principle of Advocacy, versus objective alternatives (of which inquisitorial systems are the most established example).

As the Dowler case demonstrated, the UK's adversarial system relies heavily on the directing influence of the judge to moderate proceedings. Without effective direction, the respective counsels will each pursue their version of the case with maximum zeal, effectively arguing black against white. That leads not only to people suffering emotional hurt (cf the Dowler family) but potentially also to a failure of justice itself - since the truth is almost always grey. (The judge in this case also appears to have failed to direct the external conduct of the case properly, and so the newspapers extended the theatrical performance by the QCs into the public domain, causing the secondary prosecution to collapse).

For those who want to know more about realistic alternatives to Advocacy (and IMO we all should), there's plenty of good reading available. The reference on by bookshelf is "Achieving Civil Justice: Appropriate Dispute Resolution for the 1990s", a collection of articles edited by Roger Smith and published by the Legal Action Group in April 1996 (ISBN 9780905099750). It's not exactly holiday reading, but it is thought-provoking.

Is the Coroner's court inquisitorial?

Mol

Yes it is.

There are many examples of the different outlook that the Coroner's Court provides, sometimes in direct challenge to the prevailing judicial opinion. For example, in recent times the Coroner's Court has been the most frequent source of judgements to the effect that certain military casualties in Afghanistan should have been avoided. In this respect, the Coroner's Court holds HMG to account in areas where other parts of the judicial system cannot operate.

Any comments, anyone?

It would appear in the 'Millie Dowler' case that the judge did not keep things as tight as he could.

Personally, I would have thought it irrelevant that Millie's home life wasn't great...it's hardly an excuse or mitigating circumstances for someone to think they could kill her.

A defence lawyer/QC/barrister(whomever) is going to try whatever they can and presumably are batted back by the judge but not in this case.

A shame her parents didn't challenge the judge about the questioning...although the prosecuting lawyer should have challenged...maybe they did and the judge said the questioning was OK.

So, no I wouldn't change the legal system...just make sure judges do their jobs properly.

>> trial by combat

While this is clearly an unfair system, because the strongest wins rather than the most deserving, is it any better when the person with the best access to a legal team gets such a big advantage? Maybe we should simply have people pile their money up to see who wins.

I believe it was Mark Twain, possibly thru the voice
of one of his colourful characters, who said, "lawyers
should be taken out and shot".

~jwf~

Something we need urgently is a ban on reporting on individuals involved in legal proceedings (including everything from police investigations to court proceedings) until/unless a conviction takes place. Currently, if the police so much as question a suspect their name and photo can appear in the papers and on the TV. Enforcing such a ban would stop the yellow press "sensationalising" stories and help stop the media affecting the course of justice by influencing juries, it would also stop the inevitable "no smoke without fire" stigmatisation of people who are acquitted.

With regard to the Dowler case I agree with Pinniped.

a change to sentancing

every offence has a maximum and minimum tariff

plead guilty you get the minimum get found guilty you get the max

multiple offences plead guilty you sentances run concurrent get found guilty they run consecetivly

early release......change the guidlines again. instead of having to serve a set portion of your sentance before parole

you earn remission while serving your sentance, missbehave in prison and you lose remission and serve more of your sentance