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Media & suspects without charge/ prev convic details

  • 05-10-2012 8:34am
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33


    Is it lawful to be arrested and without charge have your name disclosed to the media as a key suspect?
    I would have thought that it was if the police were 100% certain of charges being brought forward?

    Which brings me onto q2: In the circuit court is the court allowed to here details concerning previous convictions on trial? the same goes for the district doesn't it? i did observe a case recenly of a career criminal in his 50s. He was given bail in the circuit on friday afternoon to seek psychiatric help for burglary offences - and on mon morning he was before the district for attacking a bouncer with a scissors on the sat night... he hobbled around the court like a cripple in both courts... but anyway they read out his previous convictions and he quite rightly said that was unlawful..... but reasonable?

    This guy had 100's of convictions a hopeless article!


Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,998 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    There's no law against the police publicly identifying their key suspect. You can sue them for defamation, but I've never heard of anyone succeeding with that. In any event, by the time your defamation case comes on, the criminal charges will already have been disposed of. You will either have been convicted (in which case your defamation case will certainly fail) or acquitted (in which case your name has already been cleared, so why put yourself through the horrors of a defamation action?)

    Previous convictions are generally not admissible in a trial. If you are convicted, they are then mentioned because they are relevant to the sentence you will get.

    There are a number of exceptions to the rule excluding evidence of previous convictions. If the defendant puts his own character in evidence, trying to show that he is an honest and upright citizen, then the state can give evidence of previous convictions to rebut this. If the charge involves some highly unusual facts, and the defendant was previously convicted of a crime in which the same highly unusual facts presented, this is admissible. But a jury will always be warned, when evidence of previous convictions is admitted, that the mere fact that the defendant committed other offences on other occasions does not show that he committed the crime with which he is now charged. In a non-jury trial the judge is supposed to bear this in mind himself.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 9,897 ✭✭✭MagicSean


    Was he back before the court for breaching his bail or on other charges? Were his convictions read out as part of sentencing or as part of a bail hearing?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,998 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Since 1997, courts are permitted to refuse bail to a person charged with a serious offence if satisified that this is "reasonably considered necessary to prevent the commission of a serious offence" by the person. Evidence of past offences is admissible in this context.

    So, if you are charged with a serious offence and apply for bail, the state can give evidence of your previous convictions. But when your trial for that offence comes on, evidence of previous convictions is not admissible. The fact that you committed a number of (say) assaults in the past doesn't do anything to prove that you committed the assault for which you are now being tried.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 33 Denham


    Peregrinus wrote: »
    Since 1997, courts are permitted to refuse bail to a person charged with a serious offence if satisified that this is "reasonably considered necessary to prevent the commission of a serious offence" by the person. Evidence of past offences is admissible in this context.

    So, if you are charged with a serious offence and apply for bail, the state can give evidence of your previous convictions. But when your trial for that offence comes on, evidence of previous convictions is not admissible. The fact that you committed a number of (say) assaults in the past doesn't do anything to prove that you committed the assault for which you are now being tried.

    Ok thanks.
    (1) Serious offence 1st court hearing = yes prev convictions can be mentioned.
    (2) Trial date with jury - no evidence of prev convictions... even lets say if i was up for drug trafficking offences and was pleading not guilty but had been in prison three times before for drug trafficKing and had 450 previous convitions for drugs offences.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,111 ✭✭✭ResearchWill


    Denham wrote: »
    Ok thanks.
    (1) Serious offence 1st court hearing = yes prev convictions can be mentioned.
    (2) Trial date with jury - no evidence of prev convictions... even lets say if i was up for drug trafficking offences and was pleading not guilty but had been in prison three times before for drug trafficKing and had 450 previous convitions for drugs offences.

    The General rule is that previous convictions can not be mentioned before the Jury, even if the guy has a million of them. Previous convictions are not evidence that he has commited or is guilty of the charge before the court, he must and should only be convicted based on the evidence before the court at that time.

    There are exceptions to that general rule.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 26,998 ✭✭✭✭Peregrinus


    Denham wrote: »
    Ok thanks.
    (1) Serious offence 1st court hearing = yes prev convictions can be mentioned.
    (2) Trial date with jury - no evidence of prev convictions... even lets say if i was up for drug trafficking offences and was pleading not guilty but had been in prison three times before for drug trafficKing and had 450 previous convitions for drugs offences.
    Yup, they're irrelevant. Previous shows that he's the kind of guy to commit drug offences, but does nothing to show that he committed this particular drug offence.

    Think about it. If his previous is evidence that he committed this offence, then it's evidence that he commited any and every similar offence. All the guards would have to do to secure a conviction for any offence would be to arrest and charge someone with previous form for offences of the same kind. There wouldn't be an unsolved crime anywhere in the country!

    Another way to look at it; if his previous form is evidence that he committed this offence, then there is evidence of equal weight against everyone with previous form for such offences. But they can't all be guilty, can they?

    In fact, what you say in your post illustrates precisely the reason why previous form evidence is excluded - its prejudicial effect vastly outweighs any probative value it might have. You assume that because he committed many similar offences in the past he is likely to have committed this one too. Most people instinctively make the same assumption, even though a few minutes' thought shows that it's not a sound assumption at all.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 78,580 ✭✭✭✭Victor


    Denham wrote: »
    Is it lawful to be arrested and without charge have your name disclosed to the media as a key suspect?
    It needs to be done very carefully, see the current Welsh case.
    I would have thought that it was if the police were 100% certain of charges being brought forward?
    Then they would bring charges.
    Which brings me onto q2: In the circuit court is the court allowed to here details concerning previous convictions on trial? the same goes for the district doesn't it? i did observe a case recenly of a career criminal in his 50s. He was given bail in the circuit on friday afternoon to seek psychiatric help for burglary offences - and on mon morning he was before the district for attacking a bouncer with a scissors on the sat night... he hobbled around the court like a cripple in both courts... but anyway they read out his previous convictions and he quite rightly said that was unlawful..... but reasonable?

    This guy had 100's of convictions a hopeless article!
    There may have been conditions attached to the bail that he not get in trouble. In any case, someone on bail to receive psychiatric treatment needs that bail to be reassessed if they stab someone.

    Normally people on bail are very sure to announce that if threatened with arrest, as ther eare certain implications.


  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,768 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    This would be a UK example, but would the recent murder case of Joanna Yeates be relevant? Here her landlord was initially the prime suspect, who was subsequently subject to rather intense media scrutiny. After the real killer was arrested, AFAIR the landlord launched a libel action against some of the media.


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