LAWYERS INVITED TO ESTABLISH SCOTTISH REFORM GROUP

Peter Hill emailed me last week about this, although there is now information on Scottish Legal News which I have added below:

"A London-based law reform and human rights group is heading north of the border to address a meeting of Scottish lawyers.

The secretary of JUSTICE, Roger Smith, is to visit Edinburgh to speak about how a Scottish version of the group – totally independent of London – might be set up.

The body being proposed is an all-party grouping of legal and lay persons, covering the entire range of civil and criminal law.

The objective is to create a body of informed, educated and reliable opinion-makers, with first-hand experience of the legal system in action, to propose any changes that they see are necessary.

The Justicia Scotland initiative is being organised by solicitor John Scott, retired journalist Peter Hill and author Sandra Lean.

The arrangements for this meeting are now in progress and the organisers would like to know how many people might attend.

If you might be at all interested in coming to such a meeting, please email peter.hill@raybrook.co.uk.

Your name will then be added to a list of people to contact when the final arrangements have been made.

If you know of any other persons who might care to attend, please add their email addresses to your reply."

http://www.justice.org.uk

Strathclyde's Law Clinic

Strathclyde University launched some new pro bono projects during the pro bono week this year. Although the clinic does not deal with claims of innocence, their new prisons project will offer advice and information about employment rights.
I blogged about their launch event, with the Lord Advocate and Lord Phillips both giving speeches supporting the clinic at my other blog, Digital Directions.

Pro Bono Week 2009

As we officially launched the project this time last year during the 2008 National Pro Bono Week, we had a more low key event this year to inform staff and students of the developments with the GCU innocence project.

Most significantly, we have validated the project as a credit bearing module for level 3, but still have volunteers from levels 2-4 taking part on an extra-curricular basis. Secondly, we have started to work on some research projects to look at criminal conviction appeals and claims of innocence in Scotland.

Below are my slides from the departmental seminar given during Pro Bono Week 2009.

Another Historical Case Review?

Despite failure to review historical cases such as William Wallace (see previous post) and the Appin murder of 1752 (see an older post), the English Criminal Cases Review Commission will be reviewing Dr Crippen's conviction back in 1910.
Today, Scottish Legal News informs me:

"The case of one of the most notorious murderers in British history, Hawley Crippen, is to be referred to the Court of Appeal, where the infamous doctor may secure a posthumous pardon - 99 years after he was hanged.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission has been examining the safety of Dr Crippen's conviction.

Key to the case are the results of DNA tests from US forensic biologists which show that the remains in the cellar could not be those of Crippen's wife because they belong to a man.

Giovanni Di Stefano and James Lewis QC, acting for Patrick Crippen, a relative of the doctor, said they have been told that the case would be referred to the court in a development that may make Crippen the victim of the longest miscarriage of justice in British history - rather than a name that is a byword for murder most foul.

Crippen was hanged and buried in the grounds of Pentonville prison after a jury found him guilty.

According to prosecutors at his Old Bailey trial in 1910, the homeopathic practitioner poisoned his unfaithful wife, Cora, dissected her body and buried the remains in the cellar of their north London home.

Police found a corpse with no head, bones or genitals.

Preparations are already under way to begin the exhumation of Crippen's body at Pentonville."

William Wallace a Miscarriage of Justice??

‘NO MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE’ IN WALLACE’S ACT OF TREASON

The 700-year-old treason charges that led to the execution of Scottish hero Sir William Wallace will never be ruled a miscarriage of justice.
The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) was asked to review the conviction of William Wallace, the man who led the Scottish army in the Wars of Independence.

However, the body that examines potential miscarriages of justice in Scotland has decided it has no jurisdiction over the London court that found him guilty of treason.

SCCRC chief executive, Gerry Sinclair said: "I was asked whether we could consider the conviction of William Wallace.

“I had to point out that, as he had been tried and punished in London, it did not fall within our jurisdiction, but would be for the English Commission to consider."

Mr Sinclair said his team also decided not to refer the case to the Court of Appeal on the grounds that it would not be in the public interest to do so.

He added: "Our own statutory provisions place no time limit on the review of cases, but clearly some time limit has to be applied, as it cannot be in the interests of justice to spend public time and resources on historical miscarriages which can achieve no practical benefit today."

The Criminal Case Review Commission in England has also said it would not review cases such as Wallace's because of tougher appeal court rules south of the border.

Scots historians have been keen to see a review of the case, claiming that William Wallace, the victor of the Battle of Stirling Bridge in 1297, was wrongly convicted of treason in London in 1305, after he was accused of betraying an English crown he did not recognise.

‘Rough Justice’ Claim Rejected

According to Scottish Legal News:

A man who was jailed for life for murder more than 35 years ago has failed in his latest attempt to clear his name.

George Beattie was 19 when he was jailed for stabbing 23-year-old typist Margaret McLaughlin in woods near Carluke, North Lanarkshire, in 1973.

Beattie, whose case was taken up by the BBC's Rough Justice programme, served 15 years before being freed on licence.

The case against the appellant depended to a large extent on statements he made to the police and other witnesses following the murder and on his conduct after he had been arrested.

However, appeal judges rejected claims he had been "bullied" into making the statements.

Having lost a previous appeal in 1994, this latest attempt was referred to the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

Delivering the opinion of the court, the Lord Justice General, Lord Hamilton, said he was satisfied that information Beattie gave police was "volunteered" and not fed to him by officers.

The appeal judges, who also included Lord Nimmo Smith and the retired Lord Justice General, Lord Cullen of Whitekirk, also rejected claims that the trial judge in 1973 had misdirected the jury and that there was not enough evidence for a reasonable jury to find Beattie guilty.

They said: “We have considered the grounds of appeal not only individually but also cumulatively. We are not, however, persuaded that, taking the whole considerations together, the appellant has been shown to have suffered a miscarriage of justice or to have had a trial which was unfair.”

The court's decision can be read in full at http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/2009HCJAC22.html

LOCKERBIE EXPERT CALLS FOR AMENDMENT TO CRIMINAL APPEAL PROCESS

According to Scottish Legal News:

One of the architects of the original Lockerbie bombing trial at Camp Zeist is looking to amend Scots law to allow the appeal judgment decision to be made more quickly, it has been reported.

Professor Robert Black, an expert in Scots law, has written an amendment to the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 which would allow the judges to make a judgment after hearing just one part of the appeal.

Alex Neil, SNP MSP for Central Scotland, has offered to table the amendment and speak to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill about the issue.

Mr Black hopes the amendment would mean judges could release Megrahi after just two or three "chapters" rather than waiting until the summer of 2010 for a decision.

Speaking to The Herald, he said: "If the court is satisfied there has been a miscarriage of justice after just two chapters, why not decide it there and then?

"As far as I am aware this is the first time in Scotland an appeal has been broken down like this into such specific, separate chapters.

“Once they have heard enough, I want them to be able to say they quash the conviction and release Megrahi to allow him to die as a free man.

"To ensure the rest of the evidence cannot then be swept under the carpet, I would want them to hear the rest of the chapters in open court afterwards."

Megrahi's original appeal was rejected at Camp Zeist in 2002.

In 2003 his defence team appealed to the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission with new evidence, asking it to investigate.

In June 2007, it concluded there may have been a miscarriage of justice on six different grounds.

The new section to be inserted into Part VIII of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 (c 46), written by Professor Robert Black is as follows:

Staged Appeals

(1) Where an appeal is heard in stages with specific grounds of appeal allocated to each stage and there is an interval of more than four weeks between the end of any stage and the beginning of the next, the court, if the appellant at or before the end of any stage requests, shall (a) give judgment on such grounds of appeal as have been argued, and (b) exercise such of its powers under section 118(1) as it deems appropriate before the commencement of argument on the grounds of appeal allocated to the succeeding stage.

(2) Where the interval between the end of any stage and the beginning of the next is less than four weeks, the court may, if it thinks fit and the appellant requests, exercise the powers conferred in subsection (1).

(3) Where the court exercises the power conferred in subsection (1) or subsection (2), it shall continue to hear and shall give judgment upon the grounds of appeal allocated to the remaining stages of the appeal unless the appellant intimates his abandonment thereof.

(4) Where, in respect of each individual stage, the court has disposed of the grounds of appeal allocated thereto by affirming the verdict of the trial court, the court shall, at the conclusion of the appeal, consider whether, having regard to the whole grounds of appeal, a miscarriage of justice occurred in the proceedings in which the appellant was convicted.

ScoLAG journal article

My review of the project appeared in the Scottish Legal Action Group (ScoLAG) journal this month.

256 Years is Too Long!

According to ScottishLegal news, a murder case from 1752 will not be reviewed.

SCCRC yesterday confirmed that it had dismissed an attempt to examine the Appin murder of 1752, which is said to have inspired the story of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped.

The commission said it had two statutory tests it used before accepting cases for review and that the Appin case failed on the second test – it would not be in the interests of justice having regard to a number of factors, including the time lapse of 256 years.

The 18th century trial saw the Jacobite James Stewart hanged for the murder of Government agent Colin Campbell. Eleven out of the 15 jurors were Campbell and Hanoverian, and the most senior of the judges was the Duke of Argyll, chief of Clan Campbell.
Further action may be considered by the applicant - either an application for a judicial review or an appeal to the Justice Secretary.

Tomorrow's launch

My presentation for tomorrow will look at the Scottish statistics for criminal appeals, which were published recently on 28 October 08 by the Scottish Government.
In total, there were only 76 successful appeals against conviction, out of 2,254 appeals lodged in 2007/08. The total number of convictions is yet to be published, but in 2006/07 there were 138,800 criminal convictions in Scotland.
I'm interested in the grounds of appeal and types of evidence led in the 76 successful cases, and also for the 339 dismissed appeals - what we won't know is why 1,376 cases were abondoned.
The Innocence Project in New York has statistics for the most common factors leading to miscarriages of justice,, which unsurprisingly suggests that eyewitnesses are common causes.