Is convicting Stephen Lawrence’s killers worth junking double jeopardy?
Scarlett MccGwire thinks we may live to regret the overturning of double jeopardy.
3 Jan 2012, 19:30
A dangerous precedent?
It is great news that after nearly 20 years two of Stephen Lawrence’s killers have finally been brought to justice. His racist killing and the subsequent bungled police investigation were shameful.
However, a good law was changed to allow Gary Dobson and David Norris to be charged after they had been already tried and found not guilty. In the future, that change might protect guilty people and lead to the harassment of the innocent.
Double jeopardy ruled that a person could not be tried twice for the same crime. In the Stephen Lawrence case it seemed that even after Dobson and Norris were acquitted in their first trial, the whole country ‘knew’ they were guilty. The Daily Mail even had a front page headline in 1997 calling them murderers. Jack Straw, the Home Secretary at the time set up the MacPherson Enquiry which concluded that the police were institutionally racist, which was a significant factor in the shambolic investigation. Guilt and outrage combined to demand a change in the law so the Lawrence killers could be jailed.
The government and the police weighed in with other arguments, notably that the speed of developments in forensic science, like DNA testing, meant that evidence could show up years later.
However, there is a serious downside. If the police are convinced that a jury has acquitted a guilty person for a murder, the case will not close down. They could just look for more evidence.
Even before the lifting of the double jeopardy rule, this was the case for Colin Stagg, who was accused of killing Rachel Nickell in front of her young son on Wimbledon Common in1992. When the judge decided that Stagg had been entrapped by an undercover policewoman and the trial collapsed, the police made it clear they considered him guilty. Once again the Daily Mail agreed with them and Stagg had to endure years of harassment.
In 2008, Robert Napper, already in Broadmoor, pleaded guilty to the murder of Rachel Nickell on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Fourteen months after that murder, he had killed again, another mother, Samantha Bisset and her four year old daughter, Jazmin.
A subsequent investigation by the IPCC found that the police had missed vital scientific evidence that could have led to Napper’s arrest before his next murder.
Lifting the double jeopardy rule could allow more guilty people to continue killing, while the police are convinced that they only need to amass more evidence to put their prime suspect behind bars.
The author
Scarlett MccGwire
Scarlett MccGwire is a media trainer and communications consultant.
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Comments (2)
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I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of the law of double jeopardy here. For there to be new trial after an acquittal the prosecution have to make an application to the Court of Appeal who have to be satisfied that there is new and compelling evidence. "Compelling" is defined as something that is reliable, substantial and highly probative. The court also has to be satisfied that this will not lead to any unfairness to the proceedings. As you say the legislation was introduced because of advances in forensic science.But to say that the police "only need to amass more evidence to put their prime suspect behind bars" is incorrect. Sorry to be a pedant!
03/01/2012 22:26My understanding is that Norris had never been tried for this offence before. The private prosecution was against Dobson, Knight and Acourt. There was not enough evidence to charge Norris, so he was always open to face charges again if new evidence emerged.
In terms of double jeopardy in general, I agree it can be a good law, but the example you have given is just one where the police got things very wrong. How about the other cases of convictions since the law was changed (Dobson is far from the first and the law was not changed just to convict him)? William Dunlop, for example, confessed to the murder years after acquittal. Surely it is right that he was convicted in the end?
Furthermore, the legal system has for a long time allowed for those wrongfully convicted to appeal based on new evidence. Surely it is only right that the emergence of new evidence can work the other way too, as otherwise we are saying that the lack of forensic evidence can lead a jury to wrongfully convict, but not to wrongfully acquit.
03/01/2012 22:40