Opening Statement for the Prosecution
May it please the court, ladies and gentlemen of the jury? My purpose
today is to help you anticipate what you will hear over the next few
weeks as you listen to the evidence. I simply want to give you an
overview of this case. And I thank you for your patience and undivided
attention in advance.
The defendant, Captain Collingwood, is charged with a very serious
offence, murder and the consequences are most severe.
Captain Collingwood was left in charge of the vessel, the Zong, which
set sailed from the AfricanCoastto Jamaicawith 470 African slaves.
Assorted weather conditions and bad navigation by the defendant
unfortunately stretched the voyage to twice its usual length.
Naturally, being in such cramped and oppressive living conditions soon
caused some of the African slaves as well as the crewmen to fall ill.
Captain Collingwood thus came to the conclusion that the dying slaves
would ultimately mean a lost of profit and so suggested, and then
later enforced that suggestion by ordering the sicken slaves to be
drowned to enable insurance claims despite the unwillingness of his
crewmen. The evidence will show that he executed his plans with only
one objective in mind, financial gain.
First fifty-four of the feeble and helpless Africans were cast into
the open ocean. Then forty-two followed. And finally twenty-six others
met a similar fate. They were very much alive, when they were
condemned to their deaths, I gravely assure you. It was a very sad
moment for humanity. Do we all not value and guard our lives with a
fiery passion? Evidently, Captain Collingwood values his life
exceedingly and yet, he is very much prepared to sacrifice the lives
of others for the sake of greed, for his own monetary gain.
Imagine what the abandoned slaves must have felt. Their cries of grief
and pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears. They wept till tears would no
longer come, these men and women alike. Like us, they treasure their
lives, and they too, would desperately harbor a fragment of faith in
Since John Brown went through his death sentence so bravely, I believe that this could have been his purpose from the beginning, not to prompt a slave revolution but to be finished and hence, sacrifice himself to the root. If this is true, then he placed the lives of twenty-three other people in danger which consisted of sixteen people that were slaughtered in the invasion, one passed away from a disease while waiting for his trial, six that were hung for their contribution to the raid and as well as the deaths of Brown’s two sons.
``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.
Over 80 million Americans alive today have been called to jury duty at some point in their lives (Henley 5). Out of these 80 million individuals, roughly 30% (or 24 million) have been eliminated from the jury selection process due to the use of peremptory challenges (5). According to Black’s Law Dictionary, a peremptory challenge is a challenge that “need not be supported by any reason.” Although these challenges are commonplace in today’s courts, several Supreme Court cases have questioned the constitutionality of their place in the legal system. This paper will explore the history of peremptory challenges, theories behind them, a few pertinent cases, and reform progress.
This trial was between a group called the Mau Mau and Great Britain. Great Britain colonized Kenya in 1895. Great Britain's colonization of Kenya had major effects, good and bad.But in the early 1900’s, the Kenyans wanted independence. They formed a independence group called the Mau Mau. The Mau Mau were mostly made up of a tribe called the Kikuyu. As they tried peaceful protests and demonstrations, the Mau Mau were usually attacked by the British. Britain believed in order to stop the Mau Mau from their independence movement and the violence they were causing on the Britain's, Britain needed to use force. The purpose of this trial was not to make a decision about if Britain's violence was justifiable or not, but to figure out if the Mau Maus
Syme, D. (1997). Martin Bryant's Sentence- What the judge said, Retrieved 5 July, 2003, from http://www.geniac.net/portarthur/sentence.htm. 7. The Australian Encyclopaedia.
Steve Bogira, a prizewinning writer, spent a year observing Chicago's Cook County Criminal Courthouse. The author focuses on two main issues, the death penalty and innocent defendants who are getting convicted by the pressure of plea bargains, which will be the focus of this review. The book tells many different stories that are told by defendants, prosecutors, a judge, clerks, and jurors; all the people who are being affected and contributing to the miscarriage of justice in today’s courtrooms.
(a) Prosecutors have nearly limitless discretion in the most critical matters they must consider, yet they are held to very high ethical standards.
Events moved quickly, and on June 8 Sassamon's alleged murderers were tried and executed at Plymouth. Three days later, ...
Life. Life is what gives you the ability to think, to speak, to breath and to be a part of this world. It is worth more than any amount of money, your life is priceless. Without it, we would seize to exist; our world would be utter darkness. Honourable Judge, Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, today Mary Maloney stands on trial before you. A woman who took the away the life of not just an innocent citizen, but her very own husband. She was thought to be an ordinary women, a typical housewife and a soon to be loving mother. However, the facts presented before you today conclude that Mary Maloney was not just an unordinary detective’s wife, but also a murder. On April 13th 1953, the life of Patrick Maloney came to a tragic end because of leg of lamb in the hands of Mary Maloney. For the following reasons, Mary Maloney, wife of the deceased, is guilty of 1st degree murder.
On February 2nd, 2016, in trial of the Odysseus, the jury found the defendant guilty of both counts of unjustifiable first degree murder. While both sides of the trial had differing points, the defense had an overall weak and unconvincing case while the prosecution provided strong evidence of these unjustifiable murders using a variety of persuasive techniques.
The criminal trial process is able to reflect the moral and ethical standards of society to a great extent. For the law to be effective, the criminal trial process must reflect what is accepted by society to be a breach of moral and ethical conduct and the extent to which protections are granted to the victims, the offenders and the community. For these reasons, the criminal trial process is effectively able to achieve this in the areas of the adversary system, the system of appeals, legal aid and the jury system.
A forensic interview is a structured conversation with a child or minor with the intention of eliciting detailed information about a possible event (s) that the child many have experienced or witnessed. Concurrently, for Van Heerden (1977: 8) forensics refer to the computerized activities or scientific knowledge employed by law enforcement agents to serve justice. In the study, forensic investigation is used to refer to any computer-related activities or methods used by police, investigators, prosecutors and all other law enforcement agents to gather facts, track down criminals, arrest or detain them, gather information, preserve information and finally present it in the court of law.
Most countries in the world today do not use juries, and only a small percentage of cases in the United States are decided by juries. So it has been proven successful and holding trials without juries are certainly a possibility for our future. In may in fact be in society’s best interest to change or rather improve a system that is outdated and doesn’t always serve the people justice. A person has a right to choose between a jury of his peers of a bench (judge only) trial. It’s likely that citizens may prefer a jury trial as they may feel that pool of random citizens may be less critical or harsh than a judge, but in all honesty, if we’re talking about fairness, a judge who is an informed and trained professional definitely has a better idea of how to sentence a person on trial and looks at the evidence in a holistic way. A bench trial is better because it’s more efficient and cost-effective, judges are well-educated professionals, and juries may be biased or incompetent.
In 1842 a tragedy occurred when a ship struck an iceberg and more than thirty passengers piled onto a rescue boat that was meant to hold a maximum of seven people. As a storm became evident and water rushed into the lifeboat, it was clear that in order for anyone to survive the load would need to be lightened. The commanding captain suggested that some people would need to be thrown overboard in order for anyone to survive. There was a great argument on the boat between the captain and the passengers who opposed his decision. Some suggested that the weakest should be drowned, as miles of rowing the lifeboat would take toll on even the strongest. This reasoning would also make it absurd to draw names of who should be thrown over. Others suggested that if they all stayed onboard no one would be responsible for the deaths, although the captain argued he would be guilty if those who he could have saved perished in the process. Alternatively the captain decided that the weakest would be sacrificed in order to save the few left on the lifeboat. Days later the survivors were rescued and the captain was put on trial for his virtues.
History in itself is how determine the path that we have taken to arrive at a certain point. Knowing is only half of the equation, we must use that information to develop and improve, so that we can take a better path in the future. In the field of law, this is especially important. Specifically in the Criminal Justice System, history is a roadmap that is mainly used a way to examine the cause and effect relationship between policies, laws, and society.