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 cha

Essay topics:

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 the jury should be given all the past facts before they reach their decision about the case.
Do you agree or disagree? Give reason for your answer?

It is believed, and rightly so, that a person learns from his past and makes his future bright by correcting the mistakes committed in the past. Due to this, a person should not be judged, as a whole, by his past deeds only. Due the weightage must be accorded to the present circumstances in which the person commits an act, which may either give a positive or a negative result.

Different nations across the globe have a different set of rules in respect of criminal cases that come across the jury of such nation. The jury under the British and Australian laws has no access as regards the past criminal record of a defendant. This provides an edge to the defendant, as the jury comes to a decision in a vacuum. Moreover, in absence of previous criminal records the jury does not arrive at a decision due to any partiality or preconceived notion about the character of the defendant. This situation, undoubtedly, favors the defendant.

However, another school of thought believes that the jury must be aware of the past criminal records of the defendant. According to the believers of this school, an access to the past criminal records, actually provides a factual, realistic and reasonable platform to the jury to deliver their judgment. The past records, as a matter of fact, provides the insight into nature, character, upbringing, social level, mental health and numerous other factors of the defendant. With the help of these tools, it becomes easy and logical for the jury to read the subconscious mind of such defendant. Moreover, it also facilitates the jury to take a reasoned, well defined, appropriate, conscious, deliberate, judicious and prudent decision.

As a matter of fact, in the recent case of a known gangster that made headlines in the criminal magazine, The ABC, it was only due to the knowledge of the gangster's immoral act in past records, that the jury overruled the theory of reasonable doubt that was illustrated by the advocate of the defendant.

In short, in my opinion, the jury must be made aware of the past records to provide them the opportunity to have a full 360-degree view of the defendant, as a whole.

Votes
Average: 7.3 (1 vote)
This essay topic by users
Post date Users Rates Link to Content
2019-04-25 akinade 84 view
2018-10-21 Minhtam3701 73 view
Essays by user Minhtam3701 :

Comments

Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 163, Rule ID: A_UNCOUNTABLE[1]
Message: Uncountable nouns are usually not used with an indefinite article. Use simply 'access'.
Suggestion: access
...ording to the believers of this school, an access to the past criminal records, actually ...
^^^^^^^^^

Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, however, if, may, moreover, so, well, as regards, in short, as a matter of fact, in my opinion

Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments

Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 7.0 13.1623246493 53% => More to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 5.0 7.85571142285 64% => OK
Conjunction : 9.0 10.4138276553 86% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 7.30460921844 110% => OK
Pronoun: 21.0 24.0651302605 87% => OK
Preposition: 65.0 41.998997996 155% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 8.3376753507 36% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.

Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1789.0 1615.20841683 111% => OK
No of words: 368.0 315.596192385 117% => OK
Chars per words: 4.86141304348 5.12529762239 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.37987740619 4.20363070211 104% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.77449644395 2.80592935109 99% => OK
Unique words: 182.0 176.041082164 103% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.494565217391 0.561755894193 88% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 562.5 506.74238477 111% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.60771543086 93% => OK

A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 8.0 5.43587174349 147% => OK
Article: 6.0 2.52805611222 237% => Less articles wanted as sentence beginning.
Subordination: 5.0 2.10420841683 238% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 0.809619238477 124% => OK
Preposition: 7.0 4.76152304609 147% => OK

Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 16.0721442886 93% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 20.2975951904 118% => OK
Sentence length SD: 56.4109524433 49.4020404114 114% => OK
Chars per sentence: 119.266666667 106.682146367 112% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.5333333333 20.7667163134 118% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.33333333333 7.06120827912 104% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 4.38176352705 114% => OK
Language errors: 1.0 5.01903807615 20% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 8.67935871743 69% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 6.0 3.9879759519 150% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 3.0 3.4128256513 88% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?

Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.305362091181 0.244688304435 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.112386397526 0.084324248473 133% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0892919929316 0.0667982634062 134% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.156696995143 0.151304729494 104% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0646650497067 0.056905535591 114% => OK

Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.7 13.0946893788 105% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 50.2224549098 111% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.44779559118 42% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 11.3001002004 102% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.2 12.4159519038 90% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.86 8.58950901804 103% => OK
difficult_words: 94.0 78.4519038076 120% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 9.0 9.78957915832 92% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 10.1190380762 115% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 10.7795591182 111% => OK
What are above readability scores?

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Rates: 73.0337078652 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 6.5 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.