Bizarre article on man found innocent after being acquitted by a judge at trial claims "legal source" thinks "he probably did it". The source wasn't from the prosecution by any chance?

swejap · 2016-04-11T21:04:20+00:00

Also makes the following ridiculous claim:

OVERWORKED police prosecutors are no match for private defence lawyers because they have so little time to prepare, a leading advocacy group says.

It's hard to describe just how absurd this is. It's true in this case the man was very rich and able to afford a high class lawyer - but in general the police and prosecutors are well funded to do one thing and one things only - prosecute criminal cases. They are very experienced at it, and usually very good at it. Defense lawyers are often not even specialists in criminal law, and often lack experience in particular sorts of cases, even more so if it is a legal aid lawyer. Combine that with the investigative resources of the police, that are mostly only made available to the prosecution, while they have to share evidence with the defense, they don't have to actually investigate on behalf of the defense, who have to rely on private investigators etc, if they can afford it. It costs 10s of thousands to defend a criminal case at least, often in the 100s, yet the cost for an accuser is exactly $0. The entire prosecution, from the police to the lawyers to the forensics laboratories, are all paid for by the taxpayer.

One of the reasons we have legal standards like proof beyond reasonable doubt is to actually create some balance between a mere individual vs the power of a nation state effectively. Start stripping away those basic protections and you have nothing left, might as well get rid of trials altogether and save taxpayers the burden of funding this farce.

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