Nice people thread part 7 - a thread in its prime

chewmylegoff

vivatifosi wrote: »

I remember the big discussion about fraud a couple of years back and could see the logic of having a specialised panel of judges instead of a jury, but only so long as the burden of proof remains the same. My issue isn't with burden of proof, which is right and proper, its with things not being investigated in the first place.

Has the whole panel investigation of fraud thing died a death chewy?

I think so - I am not close to it any more.

The logic was borne out of the fact that fraud trials were by nature very document heavy, so they take a very long time to get through. 3-6 month trials are common place. If you get called up to do jury service for a 6 month trial and you have a job, you are going to do anything you can to get out of it. The juries for very long trials therefore consist of unemployed people and pensioners - thank god for the pensioners...

So basically you get 11 idiots and one old person who likes an afternoon snooze trying (or actually not trying at all) to assimilate 30 lever arch files of complicated informatio and decide if someone did it.

It is very unsatisfactory, although counsel are partly to blame for dragging trials out to maximum length do they get paid more.

Some of the issues would be solved by professional juries, but that would just create new, different problems.

chewmylegoff

PasturesNew wrote: »

I was skimming about those 7 soldiers held for murder ..... and they said it'll be dealt with by a military court - who are used to there being no witnesses and have to take a balance of probability and likelihood to come to a conclusion.

You do get witnesses in court martial but they cannot compel witnesses to attend in the way the criminal courts can do think it tends to just be other military personnel and any "victims / accusers". They operate on balance of probability (I.e. court needs to think you are at least 51% guilty rather than needing to prove you are definitely not innocent which is effectively the criminal standard).

Think court martial (in uk) decision maker is a single officer but not sure.

zagubov

chewmylegoff wrote: »

Having worked for a prosecutor for a number of years I found it very scary how the institutional view was that we should lobby the givt to make it easier to prosecute. A number of the senior people used to preach about how much better it would be if there was a presumption of guilt when sufficient evidence existed for there to be a "reasonable suspicion" and there was an even stronger view that juries should not be trusted with anything as important as deciding whether someone was guilty or not - everyone wanted juries replaced with a panel of three judges.

I think it was probably all borne out of frustration. I spent three years of my life building a wall of evidence against a sophisticated frausdster, the centre piece of which was his own confession which he had emailed to a colleague. The jury found him not guilty (he had stolen the life savings of hundreds of pensioners). I couldn't believe it - and they didn't even have to explain themselves. If you're constantly up against that I can see why you would want the system changed -- however, you would soon change your mind if you were on the receiving end!

Always wondered why the Scottish third verdict (not proven) wasn't more widespread. You knew the person was gulity and the innocent were innocent - but you knew there were potential offenders who only got off on a technicality who you had to be wary of.

Panels of three judges . Only used once IIRC (actually in Camp Zeist) and produced a very dodgy verdict that nobody seems to find credible any more. I agree a very poor idea.

zagubov

misskool wrote: »

Not me, I don't know where that is

Exhausted. Went to London for a meeting yesterday then met a friend and then went out on a guest list free bar thingy.

Then we have weekenders and then a week of going out to random gigs (Joan Armatrading and Dara O'Briain) and the weekenders are back for a return visit.

I am going to enjoy sleeping in 2 weeks from now :rotfl:

Made it to Scotland after a two hour hold up due to a seven -car crash on the M1. Why does anyone ever use the M1 considering the huge problems that always happen there?

I horrified lir by revealing I was at a Joan Armatrading concert when she was an embryo.

Spoke to my sister about our visit to TOTP back in the 72 and she confirmed that JS was the DJ. Nothing dodgy happened though.

michaels

I guess there is also an implied trade off between how many guilty we are willing to see go free to avoid one innocent being jailed?

The different police forces only really began pooling evidence after the Soham case in 2002.

michaels

he good weather with sudden downpours we had today is always good for mway pile-ups

zagubov wrote: »

Made it to Scotland after a two hour hold up due to a seven -car crash on the M1. Why does anyone ever use the M1 considering the huge problems that always happen there?

zagubov

michaels wrote: »

he good weather with sudden downpours we had today is always good for mway pile-ups

Since I first moved to London from the South Midlands in the early 80s I have no recollection of the M1 ever flowing in a free manner. ever. Have always used the M40 and assumed everyone with a choice did similar.

Horrified that coach companies believe the M1 is even an option, let a alone the default route.:eek:

chewmylegoff

michaels wrote: »

he good weather with sudden downpours we had today is always good for mway pile-ups

We walked all the way around richmond park today - about 8 or 9 miles I think. It was the wrong day to do it!!

Generali

I found a dead possum in the garage that I had to remove. Yuk! They're bloody huge, slightly bigger than a domestic cat.

CKhalvashi

zagubov wrote: »

Since I first moved to London from the South Midlands in the early 80s I have no recollection of the M1 ever flowing in a free manner. ever. Have always used the M40 and assumed everyone with a choice did similar.

Horrified that coach companies believe the M1 is even an option, let a alone the default route.:eek:

The M1 was clear at 2pm yesterday afternoon, and I happily cruised down at about 80mph to our office (County Council meeting at j14 to the North Circular which takes us to our new company home).

Average speed was 59.4mph when I got back into the office, and 57.6 when I got home, so just over my average speed for the day.

The North Circular on the other hand..........

CK