In search of perfect justice
The premature death of Sally Clark, wrongly convicted for the murder of two of her children and eventually released by the Court of Appeal on her second appeal (the first appeal having been dismissed) is likely to focus public attention not just upon the need for caution regarding expert evidence (this having been a key part of the case against her) but also the problem of miscarriages of justice.
^ TOPStrength within the system
In a sense, the legal system can, in the public eye, be a victim of its own flexibility. It is always horrendous that people are wrongly convicted. However people are not perfect and so courts will never be perfect. Even if everyone acts perfectly properly and competently, sometimes things will go wrong. A willingness to recognise this and to put things right is a sign of strength within the system. A truly flawed system would not be prepared to recognise its own shortcomings, and instead of allowing appeals might leave the wrongly convicted to suffer their plight.
Needless to say "legal system puts things right in the end" does not catch the public mood quite the same as headlines fulminating against injustice and incompetence within the system.
^ TOPCapital Punishment
What you can also expect is a shortage of articles by journalists in favour of capital punishment reflecting on how, if they had their way, this might be a case of yet another innocent person executed. Or how fear of a mistake when there is no real or reasonable doubt could cause juries to return perverse acquittals. Risks of making the wrong decision should always be part of the deliberations of any jury. If you focus on that in a state of terror about the defendant being hanged if convicted, and later finding out that you got the decision wrong, some people could probably end up looking to acquit however obvious and strong the evidence was against the defendant. I differ from many of my colleagues in that I personally have no moral qualms about capital punishment. I am opposed to it on pragmatic grounds. I am not prepared to take the risk of hanging the innocent (and every lawyer knows, that as no system can be foolproof, there will always be some people wrongly convicted, and therefore it follows as night follows day that if you have capital punishment some people will be wrongly executed). Nor do I want to see obviously guilty murderers walk free because juries frighten themselves into thinking there must be a doubt (fearing causing a miscarriage of justice) when there is really no doubt about guilt.
The legal system must always strive to avoid miscarriages of justice. It is impossible to completely prevent them.
^ TOPLord Justice Richards
One thing which has, mercifully, not been picked up by the tabloids is that Lord Justice Richards, the Appeal Court Judge presently not sitting because he is facing two charges of indecent exposure regarding the same woman, was one of the judges who in the original appeal dismissed Sally Clark's appeal against conviction. (Rightly or wrongly, an Appeal Court has to make the decision based on how it sees the law as applied to the facts: no one, least of all a Law Lord or Lord Justice of Appeal, would suggest for a moment that neither they personally nor Appeal Courts generally do not sometimes get things wrong). Whilst I have no personal knowledge of any of the facts in this case, presumably the Lord Justice is hoping to avoid a miscarriage of justice himself.