Under British and Australian laws a jury in a criminal case has no access to information about the defendant’s past criminal record. This protects the person who is being accused of the crime. Some lawyers have suggested that this practice should be changed and that a jury should be given all the past facts before they reach their decision about the case. Do you agree or disagree
It is standard practice under British and Australian laws to withhold an accused’s criminal records from the jury, for his or her protection. Some lawyers have kicked against this and opined that all facts about the defendant should be known before a case is decided. In my opinion, the traditional practice should be upheld for the reasons explained in the following paragraphs.
Firstly, access to details of previous conviction creates a negative bias towards the defendant. In other words, there is the tendency for the jury to have a wrong perception about someone, based on vices in the past , before considering the facts of the current case objectively. This could lead to wrong judgement on repentant criminals, even when they might be innocent. For example, two brothers who had done time in the United states, were wrongly jailed for a murder in 1985, a modern DNA testing done in 2018 absorbed them of complicity in the killings. During review of their case files, it was noted that their record influenced their indictment.
Another reason for the current practice to be upheld, is that it reduces the need for additional court time. Having to go through the details of an accused’s past would certainly lead to a longer justice process which ultimately increases cost of justice. The process and approvals needed to view criminal records in the United States take roughly two weeks, with the reviewers incurring costs offset by the justice system.
To sum up, all defendants with police records should be given a benefit of doubt and not subjected to scrutiny for past offences . I also think that lie detector tests should be administered on them during court hearings to give credence to their pleas.
| Post date | Users | Rates | Link to Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-04-25 | akinade | 84 | view |
| 2018-10-21 | Minhtam3701 | 73 | view |
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Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, firstly, so, as to, for example, in my opinion, in other words, to sum up
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 12.0 13.1623246493 91% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 8.0 7.85571142285 102% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 10.4138276553 48% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 7.0 7.30460921844 96% => OK
Pronoun: 20.0 24.0651302605 83% => OK
Preposition: 49.0 41.998997996 117% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 8.3376753507 72% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1448.0 1615.20841683 90% => OK
No of words: 286.0 315.596192385 91% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.06293706294 5.12529762239 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.11236361783 4.20363070211 98% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.68479802445 2.80592935109 96% => OK
Unique words: 177.0 176.041082164 101% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.618881118881 0.561755894193 110% => OK
syllable_count: 439.2 506.74238477 87% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.60771543086 93% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 5.43587174349 74% => OK
Article: 3.0 2.52805611222 119% => OK
Subordination: 1.0 2.10420841683 48% => OK
Conjunction: 0.0 0.809619238477 0% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.76152304609 126% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 13.0 16.0721442886 81% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 22.0 20.2975951904 108% => OK
Sentence length SD: 31.9216867167 49.4020404114 65% => OK
Chars per sentence: 111.384615385 106.682146367 104% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.0 20.7667163134 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.61538461538 7.06120827912 94% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.38176352705 91% => OK
Language errors: 11.0 5.01903807615 219% => Less language errors wanted.
Sentences with positive sentiment : 2.0 8.67935871743 23% => More positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 3.9879759519 150% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 3.4128256513 147% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.322695488682 0.244688304435 132% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.102443465732 0.084324248473 121% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0763472348747 0.0667982634062 114% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.194318333795 0.151304729494 128% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.115937840366 0.056905535591 204% => More connections among paragraphs wanted.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.4 13.0946893788 102% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 50.2224549098 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.44779559118 42% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 11.3001002004 95% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.07 12.4159519038 97% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.37 8.58950901804 109% => OK
difficult_words: 84.0 78.4519038076 107% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 10.5 9.78957915832 107% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 10.1190380762 107% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 10.7795591182 102% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 84.2696629213 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 7.5 Out of 9
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.