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Tag: jury

Defamation, opinion, and the presumption of innocence

12 October, 200931 July, 2016
| 6 Comments
| Defamation, Freedom of Expression, Irish cases

“Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer”

William Blackstone Commentaries on the Laws of England (vol 4) 358

Louis Blom-Cooper, via BBCWith very little coverage (Day 1: Irish Times here and here | RTÉ; Day 2: Irish Times), a case which had the capacity to make a fundamental change to Irish defamation law was decided in the Supreme Court at the end of last week. Two members of the Birmingham Six have taken defamation proceedings against leading English human rights barrister Sir Louis Blom–Cooper QC (pictured left). Blom-Cooper sought to have the case struck out on the basis that his expression of opinion was constitutionally protected. However, the Supreme Court allowed the case to proceed, and (if the press reports are accurate) ducked the constitutional question, at least for the time being.

The story begins with the presumption of innocence, embodied in the quote from Blackstone, above. In Woolmington v DPP [1935] AC 462, [1935] UKHL 1 (23 May 1935) Viscount Sankey held that “the presumption of innocence in a criminal case is strong”, and emphasised, that throughout the web of the criminal law,

… one golden thread is always to be seen that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner’s guilt … If, at the end of and on the whole of the case, there is a reasonable doubt, created by the evidence given by either the prosecution or the prisoner, as to whether the prisoner killed the deceased with a malicious intention, the prosecution has not made out the case and the prisoner is entitled to an acquittal.

…

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A true verdict?

30 January, 200930 January, 2009
| No Comments
| Freedom of Expression

12 Angry Men, dvd cover, via rotten tomatoes website.In a previous post, I looked at the restrictions on publishing jury deliberations. Now comes the news that, in the UK, the Attorney-General has been given the go-ahead to prosecute The Times:

The Attorney-General has been given permission to bring contempt of court proceedings against the publishers of The Times and the foreman of a jury alleged to have revealed “secrets of the jury room”.

The foreman’s anonymous criticism of the conviction of a childminder for the manslaughter of a baby in her care was reported in a Times article in 2007. At the High Court, Baroness Scotland of Asthal, QC, was given leave to bring proceedings against Times Newspapers Ltd and the foreman. The newspaper had not been informed of the hearing.

Lord Justice Maurice Kay said: “We don’t think this is the very gravest case of jury indiscretion – nevertheless we grant permission.”

One question which I assume will arise – as Joseph Jaconelli suggested in (1990) 10 Legal Studies 91 and in chapter 7 of Open Justice: A critique of the Public Trial (OUP, 2002) – will be as to the extent to which freedom of expression, on the part both of the juror and of the media, trenches upon the traditional absolute secrecy of the jury room.…

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Hi there! Thanks for dropping by. I’m Eoin O’Dell, and this is my blog: Cearta.ie – the Irish for rights.


“Cearta” really is the Irish word for rights, so the title provides a good sense of the scope of this blog.

In general, I write here about private law, free speech, and cyber law; and, in particular, I write about Irish law and education policy.


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