Author Archives: Daniel Ehighalua

The above title is the fulcrum of Dr. Michael Naughton’s argument in his very illuminating article, in the Irish Journal of Legal Studies. He used the United Kingdom as his case study. He formulates his argument this way:

‘ — that the presumption of innocence and the burden of proof on the prosecution to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt act in reality against the interests of those who might be innocent at every stage of the criminal justice process. This is because the presumption, in effect, render suspects of crime passive, which simultaneously justifies minimal resources to the defence, whilst the burden places pressure on, and directs the bulk of the resources to the police and the prosecution to chip away at the presumed innocent status and construct cases from only incriminating evidence that might obtain a conviction, rendering innocent victims vulnerable to wrongful convictions’

He then goes on to say –

‘As a result, the defence side of the adversarial equation, widely thought to be the key safeguard against wrongful convictions, is largely ineffectual as it is resource poor and reliant on police and prosecution evidence that is not suitable for defending against cases constructed from such evidence’

His thesis, at first, appears to be an attempt to stand the law on its head, but the article successfully wrestles with, and strive to undermine centuries of long held legal maxim, that now appears to be, either ‘obsolete’ or, at best obscures the search for justice. Read the full article here and come to your own conclusion(s)http://www.ijls.ie/Articles/IJLS_Vol_2_Issue_1_Article_4_Naughton.pdf

In light of the recent media blitz in the Trayvon Martin case, and indeed, more recent ones before it, like the Casey Anthony and Amanda Knox cases; it’s absolutely important that we properly contextualise the role of the media. In this connection, I find the article by two distinguished Attorneys – William R. Montross, Jr & Patrick Mulvaney – very apposite in understanding the polemics the media deploys in such situations. Both Attorneys deliberately set out to make a nuanced distinction, and rightly so, between ‘justice reporting and crime reporting’. Read this: ‘Where crime reporting purports to answer the questions, Who? What? When? and Where? criminal justice reporting attempts to initiate conversation and debate about the far harder question of Why? Why is the man on death row? Why are people who kill a white person 400 to 500 percent more likely to receive the death penalty than people who kill a black person. Why do courts seem more concerned with protecting a death verdict than ensuring that justice was done? Criminal justice reporting is the opposite of crime reporting. Where crime reporting is salacious, criminal justice reporting is reasoned; where crime reporting ignores nuance,  criminal justice reporting is full of complexity. Crime reporting appeals to a limited range of base emotions; criminal justice reporting elicits a far more complex emotional response, and, more importantly, it engages the intellect.

Read their full treatise in Volume 61, Issue 6 in the Stanford Law Reviewhttp://www.stanfordlawreview.org/sites/default/files/articles/Montross-Mulvaney.pdf. The article goes on to provide anecdotal evidence of these as it appears in the media. They were also scathing of Texas’ ignoble epithet of being America’s most notorious killing state.