We like to think that our criminal justice system locks up criminals and exonerates the innocent. A comforting working assumption; but the reality is more complex. High-profile miscarriages of justice – and the years some spend wrongfully in prison – are signs that the system sometimes gets it dreadfully wrong. One way of designing out wrongful convictions is through a demanding evidentiary threshold: to convict someone, juries need to be “sure” that a defendant is guilty. The flipside of this is that the probably-guilty have to be allowed to walk free.
But jury deliberations are only one part of the process and are certainly not sufficient to prevent serious miscarriages of justice, as the horrific treatment of Andrew Malkinson has shown. Malkinson last month had his rape conviction overturned by the court of appeal after 17 years in prison. His case has been plagued by serious failings at every turn. Greater Manchester police failed to disclose key evidence undermining the prosecution’s case against him to his defence team at the time of his trial, including key witnesses’ criminal convictions and important photographic evidence. This only came to light 15 years later, as a result of extensive legal action by the charity Appeal.
