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The nature of liability in criminal law
The nature of liability in criminal law
The nature of liability in criminal law
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LAW1114 CASE ANALYSIS OLGA IGNATOVA v R [2010] VSCA 263 ________________________________________________________________ Part One: Case Summary The applicant, Olga Ignatova, scalded her then four-year-old daughter, Tara Shirname, when trying to clean her soiled daughter in her own home on 4 December 2007. Ignatova and her former husband Parag Shirname were involved in Family Court proceedings that required them to care for Tara on alternate weeks. On 7 December 2007, she handed Tara to Shirname with a note stating that she caught the same rash as before. He took her to the Royal Children’s Hospital and the police were alerted. Ignatova denies of having burnt Tara and claims that the injuries were caused by Tara’s skin condition and faeces. …show more content…
Hence supports that when the victim was burnt, the applicant ceased it immediately to stop further harm and proves her intention of caring for her daughter. This is further reinforced through evidence that indicates that she was a loving and conscientious mother1 and the absence of proof of any unpleasant motives towards Tara. The Crown relied on Ignatova’s post-offence conduct of lies and her disregard for the doctor’s referral as circumstantial evidence of her guilt. However, it cannot be proven beyond reasonable doubt that her actions were the cause of guilt as there were other reasons like her concern of this impact on her Family Court proceedings. There also isn’t direct evidence for Ignatova’s state of mind. For these reasons, Neave JA ordered, where Ashley JA and Weinberg JA agreed to, the conviction quashed and a verdict of acquittal be …show more content…
However, it does not fully disclose the conditions to satisfy this offence. In Wayne v R, the trial judge misled the jury by employing the word ‘might’ instead of ‘probably’, resulting in an appeal allowed22. The lack of a unified distinction between probability and possibility when defining recklessness allows errors like this to misguide the jury’s decision. In Barrow v Bolt, Forest J states that reckless indifference to the truth or falsity is only evidence that may give rise with other evidence to an inference, alone it is insufficient23. Lack of belief in the truth can only be conclusive evidence when the statement is reckless to the point of wilful blindness in extreme cases24. The main aspect of recklessness, is to prove the absolute existence of the mental element. The specifications for recklessness should be further improved to be clearer and unequivocal. For criminal trials, judges must inform the jury to the best of their ability on relevant laws and offer proper guidance. Hence resulting in a consistent application of the criminal law where justice is
The appeal was heard in The NSW Supreme Court, Court of Appeal. The appellant appealed the issue of “blameless accidents” therefore providing new evidence, with the view that the preceding judge made an error recognising the content and scope of duty of care. He also noted the breach of duty of care and causation .
Your honor, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, thank you for your attention today. [Slide #2] I would like to assert that separation is not the end of a relationship. Divorce is not the end of a relationship. Even an arrest is not the end of a relationship. Only death is the end of a relationship. In the case of defendant Donna Osborn, her insistence that ‘“one way or another I’ll be free,”’ as told in the testimony of her friend Jack Mathews and repeated in many others’, indicates that despite the lack of planning, the defendant had the full intent to kill her husband, Clinton Osborn.
Counsel of the appellant sought a certificate from the judge to bring an interlocutory appeal to the Court of Appeal against the admissibility of the coincidence evidence. The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, ruling the coincidence evidence inadmissible. It adopted a different approach than that in NSW in reviewing the ruling of the Evidence.
``In criminal law, confession evidence is a prosecutor’s most potent weapon’’ (Kassin, 1997)—“the ‘queen of proofs’ in the law” (Brooks, 2000). Regardless of when in the legal process they occur, statements of confession often provide the most incriminating form of evidence and have been shown to significantly increase the rate of conviction. Legal scholars even argue that a defendant’s confession may be the sole piece of evidence considered during a trial and often guides jurors’ perception of the case (McCormick, 1972). The admission of a false confession can be the deciding point between a suspect’s freedom and their death sentence. To this end, research and analysis of the false confessions-filled Norfolk Four case reveals the drastic and controversial measures that the prosecuting team will take to provoke a confession, be it true or false.
At trial, your life is in the palms of strangers who decide your fate to walk free or be sentenced and charged with a crime. Juries and judges are the main components of trials and differ at both the state and federal level. A respectable citizen selected for jury duty can determine whether the evidence presented was doubtfully valid enough to convict someone without full knowledge of the criminal justice system or the elements of a trial. In this paper, juries and their powers will be analyzed, relevant cases pertaining to jury nullification will be expanded and evaluated, the media’s part on juries discretion, and finally the instructions judges give or may not include for juries in the court. Introduction Juries are a vital object to the legal system and are prioritized as the most democratic element in our society, aside from voting, in our society today.
In the United States, jury trials are an important part of our court system. We rely heavily on the jury to decide the fate of the accused. We don’t give a second thought to having a jury trial now, but they were not always the ‘norm’.
Test of the “harmless error” rule. Law and Human Behavior Vol. 21, No. 1, p.
...d, ‘so far as the threshold conditions are concerned, the factor which seems to me to outweigh all others is the prospect than an unidentified, and unidentifiable, carer may inflict further injury on a child he or she has already severely damaged’. This approach was later applied in Merton LBC v K .
In order to understand whether judges would be better at making decisions if they were more truthful, if is essential that an examination of the manner in which they decide cases is undertaken. Many judges will decide based on their own personal back ground. For example, if the judge had a clash in the past with a member of a different race that might play a role in the decision making process. Judicial impartiality is a fundamental characterized in a legal system under the rule of law. The law against bias together with the right to be heard from the principles of natural justice. Judicial proceedings must follow stricter procedural requirements. Implying that proceedings must be similar to those followed in court proceedings. If the requirement is not followed, the decision could be invalidated by a court if it is challenged. Plea bargaining in the United States is controversial issue because the practice of plea bargaining is necessary as long as the United States has high crime rates and facilities for cases. Plea bargaining allows the flexibility necessary if the system is to respond with any degree of concern for the circumstances of individual cases, however, it may also entice defendants to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit rather than risk their constitutional right to
Even though the common law rules governing the admissibility of hearsay evidence in criminal proceedings were abolished, many of the exceptions to the rules were persevered by subsection (1) under Section 118. The CJA 2003 only simplifies and relaxes certain aspects of the rule, and the exceptions to it which previously have contributed to difficulties in applying the rule. Any rule of law preserved by section 118 makes it admissible. Under the Statutory categories of admissibility Section 114(1)(d) will be considered only in cases where admissibility under the other statutory provisions and the retained common law rules is not allowed. The guidelines for the factors to consider regarding the test of admissibility is “interests of justice” in which Prosecutors need to take these factors into account when considering the likely admissibility of evidence that the prosecution propose to call.
The jury plays a crucial role in the courts of trial. They are an integral part in the Australian justice system. The jury system brings ordinary people into the courts everyday to judge whether a case is guilty or innocent. The role of the jury varies, depending on the different cases. In Australia, the court is ran by an adversary system. In this system “..individual litigants play a central part, initiating court action and largely determining the issues in dispute” (Ellis 2013, p. 133). In this essay I will be discussing the role of the jury system and how some believe the jury is one of the most important institutions in ensuring that Australia has an effective legal system, while others disagree. I will evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of a jury system.
A jury is a panel of citizens, selected randomly from the electoral role, whose job it is to determine guilt or innocence based on the evidence presented. The Jury Act 1977 (NSW) stipulates the purpose of juries and some of the legal aspects, such as verdicts and the right of the defence and prosecution to challenge jurors. The jury system is able to reflect the moral and ethical standards of society as members of the community ultimately decide whether the person is guilty or innocent. The creation of the Jury Amendment Act 2006 (NSW) enabled the criminal trial process to better represent the standards of society as it allowed majority verdicts of 11-1 or 10-2, which also allowed the courts to be more resource efficient. Majority verdicts still ensure that a just outcome is reached as they are only used if there is a hung jury and there has been considerable deliberation. However, the role of the media is often criticized in relation to ensuring that the jurors remain unbiased as highlighted in the media article “Independent Juries” (SMH, 2001), and the wide reporting of R v Gittany 2013 supports the arguments raised in the media article. Hence, the jury system is moderately effective in reflecting the moral and ethical standards of society, as it resource efficient and achieves just outcomes, but the influence of the media reduces the effectiveness.
While the jury remains a vital cog in the machine that is the English legal system, the debate over its validity has attracted many academic and legal opinions. The jury has been an integral part of criminal proceedings in Britain for over 800 years. Though the concept of the jury has remained a constant, the role of the juries in criminal proceedings has altered greatly. When juries were first introduced, they were used as witnesses as opposed to the modern role of returning a verdict. The concept of using a jury is to allow ‘ordinary citizens to participate in the administration of justice’ . This is designed to promote public confidence.
On Bloodsworth’s appeal he argued several points. First he argued that there was not sufficient evidence to tie Bloodsworth to the crime. The courts ruled that the ruling stand on the grounds that the witness evidence was enough for reasonable doubt that the c...
A practical example of this is demonstrated in the case of R v Lowe. Whereby the parents failed to call the doctor. when their child fell ill. The special relationship between the child and the father made the father criminally liable where he failed to act. under his duty of care.