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A.C. 2.4 – assess key influences affecting the outcome of criminal cases
The Media
The media has a large impact on the outcome of a criminal case. Many people believe the content of the media
printed to be true even when it is not, which could lead to a suspect no getting a fair trial. Under English law a
person is innocent until proven guilty, but if a jury already has been influenced by the media. This could affect the
outcome of the trial and result is trial by media. Examples of this can include Christopher Jefferies he was accused of
murdering his tenant Joanna Yates and was wrongfully imprisoned for her murder. He was later released without
charge. However, the media portrayed Jefferies in an early negative way, with one article along describing me as
"strange", "weird", "disturbing" and " a loner". This was based primarily off his appearance and despite being
innocent, the reporting of him le the public to believe he was guilty and resulted in a trial by media. In the case of
Jonathan Woodgate and Lee Bowyer, the footballers were accused of assaulting an Asian student in Leeds in 2001.
The trial collapsed after a newspaper article was published about an interview with the victim's father whilst the jury
was deliberating the verdict. The Sunday Mirror story could have heavily prejudiced the jury and resulted in an unfair
jury. In addition to this, the jury was all white, and the victim believed it was this bias which impacted the verdict.
The newspaper was heavily criticised and ordered to pay £175,000 in fines. The status of the figures could have also
swayed the jury. Lord Justice Kennedy said the timing and content of the article had been imperil to a lengthy,
expensive, high-profile and difficult trial at a difficult time. The impact of a trial by media is hugely consequential. The
media leads the public to assume the person who has been arrested is guilty of the crime. This can lead to the jury’s
views being altered and evidence that links to it may have to be thrown out. Inadmissible evidence can be used in
court and is evidence that comes from outside of the court. Trial by media may lead to inadmissible evidence being
brought in the court and impacts the verdict. If the wrong verdict. this can lead to a miscarriage of justice, which
results in compensation being paid and people losing jobs.
Experts
The duty of an expert witness is to help the court to achieve the overriding objective by giving opinion, which is
objective and unbiased, in relation to matters within their expertise. In relation to criminal cases, a study published
in The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law found that extraversion as measured by
expressiveness in face, movement, and voice—made expert witnesses more likeable to jurors. The effects of
likeability on credibility, however, varied among jurors. Jurors who were extraverted themselves tended to find
witnesses more credible if they liked the witnesses more, while jurors who were more introverted found expert
witnesses equally credible whether they liked the witness or not. The background of an expert witnesses plays a key
role in having the witness certified as an expert. Unsurprisingly, it affects jurors’ perceptions of the witness’s
“expert” status as well. A case example of this is seen in the case of Oscar Pistorius, and is own expert witness Roger
Dixon, told the court under cross examination that after Pistorius shot his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp through a
locked bathroom door, the model fell on to a magazine rack next to the toilet. However, Pistorius has claimed earlier
that evidence from the police was unreliable because investigators had moved things around, including the
magazine rack. This might have led the court judge and jury to think that the expert is more likely to tell the truth
because they have expertise in their field. A report by the law commission named expert evidence in criminal
proceeding in England and Wales 2011 in the case of Sally Clark an expert pediatrician gave unreliable opinion
evidence. This expert, who was not a statistician, had formulated his opinion on the assumption that there were no
genetic or environmental factors affecting the likelihood of naturally occurring cot deaths,6 opining that there was
only a one in 73 million chance of two such deaths in the same family. The Court of Appeal took the view that the
figure grossly misrepresented the chance of two sudden deaths within a family from unexplained but natural causes,
and added that if the issue of the statistical evidence had been fully argued it would probably have provided a
distinct basis upon which to allow C’s appeal.7 The court also noted that the way the expert had presented his
evidence could have had a major impact on the jury’s deliberations. 1.6 In Cannings,8 C’s convictions for the murder
of her two infant sons had been based on the dogmatic expert view (that is, a view based on a hypothesis which had
not been sufficiently scrutinised or supported by empirical research)9 that the mere fact of two or more unexplained
infant deaths in the same family meant that murder had been committed. The Court of Appeal quashed C’s
convictions. Fresh evidence suggested that multiple cot deaths in the same family could have an underlying genetic
cause; and a report relating to the largest follow-up study of cot-death families concluded that “the occurrence of a
second unexpected infant death within a family is … usually from natural causes”.
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