Get this;
Chris Comeskey, the lawyer leading the defense team for Nai Yin Xue, wants legal aid money to investigate the potential jurors for this gentleman's trial.
It seems a new company, Verdix investigations, has been set up explicitly for the purpose of investigating potential jurors. Headed by Stephen Cook, an ex Sunday newspaper journalist turned private investigator, Verdix will perform background checks on potential jurors to weed out "rogue jurors". And it is this company Chris Comeskey seeks to employ, but on the taxpayers dime naturally.
Well the jury system and the attendant selection process may not be perfect but this will do nothing to improve it, the reverse in fact.
A real clue to the thinking behind this lies in this statement from Chris Comeskey himself.
And you can see where this could lead, Maori juries for Maoris, Muslim juries for Muslims and so forth. Not forgetting the proliferation of companies sucking at the taxpayers tit investigating people whose only crime was to be selected for jury service.
Don't the anti-social consume enough of our resources already?
Chris Comeskey, the lawyer leading the defense team for Nai Yin Xue, wants legal aid money to investigate the potential jurors for this gentleman's trial.
It seems a new company, Verdix investigations, has been set up explicitly for the purpose of investigating potential jurors. Headed by Stephen Cook, an ex Sunday newspaper journalist turned private investigator, Verdix will perform background checks on potential jurors to weed out "rogue jurors". And it is this company Chris Comeskey seeks to employ, but on the taxpayers dime naturally.
Well the jury system and the attendant selection process may not be perfect but this will do nothing to improve it, the reverse in fact.
A real clue to the thinking behind this lies in this statement from Chris Comeskey himself.
"For example it would be no good for me to be a juror on a case involving child rape allegations because I have children."What would he do, try and stack the jury with pedophiles?
And you can see where this could lead, Maori juries for Maoris, Muslim juries for Muslims and so forth. Not forgetting the proliferation of companies sucking at the taxpayers tit investigating people whose only crime was to be selected for jury service.
Don't the anti-social consume enough of our resources already?
Well said Andrei - we also posted about this on Keeping Stock, and have had some interesting comments!
ReplyDeletehttp://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2009/05/why.html
His logic on jurors that would not be suitable for a child rapist's trial is worrisome.
ReplyDeleteThere was your point,
and the point that childless people don't identify with kids
and if a child rapist has children themselves, does that automatically make them innocent?
and is it a requirement to feel no empathy for the victim?
and does he not see that empathy for the victim is still separate from determining that the issue for the jury is to judge if the accused is a liar as well as a rapist. Or to put it a little more positively, the crime is obvious, and the court needs to assure itself it has actually found the criminal responsible for the crime.
The judge still determines the sentence.