The
Innocent in Jail
A simple unwanted truth would be to state
that if you have a jury who came up with a verdict of ten to two then two out
of twelve people found guilty will in fact be innocent, it’s the law of
averages but let’s look just a little deeper.
The Ostrich Factor
So how sure do you have to be of someone’s
guilt before you throw someone in jail? Well! The defendant has to be guilty
beyond reasonable doubt. So, can we attribute a percentage to this? Do we send
him down when the jury believes he is 99% guilty or 51% guilty. I always
thought this a little ambiguous but there is in fact a precise percentage, it
is 83.33%. Where did I dig that one from? Simple, the law accepts a guilty
verdict of ten jurors to two. They would of course presume that the ten were
100% certain of guilt while the two were 100% sure of innocence; thus the
official figure is 83.33% guilty. THE LAWMAKERS ARE MAKING A SIMPLE STATEMENT.
Even if the jury voted 12-0 they still only have to be 83.33% sure of the
defendants guilt; apply this 83% to individual jurors in a 10-2 verdict and the
consensus would be more like 72%. The numbers may be hypothetical but they are
probably very near the truth.
There are a number of things that muddy the
water; if we try to apply these statistics to the amount of people banged up in
jail. Such as people admitting guilt and plea-bargaining. If you are innocent and
fight your case and you lose, you could be locked away for ten years. A plea
bargain may get this down to a year; manslaughter instead of pre-meditated
murder. Then there is the parole aspect. If you admit guilt and show remorse
you will be free long before the guy who didn’t do it and pleads innocence.
The above is such a muddy scene it is
probably better to concentrate on the jury’s certainty in a given case. I have
sat on a jury and my feeling is that many juries will convict on a 60/40 (60%
guilty-40% innocent) basis thus the official 83.33% doesn’t sound too bad. If
we have 80,000 people behind bars, which we do in this country and we make the
assumption that they got there by honest trials then it would be reasonable to
presume that around 12,800 are innocent. The thing about this type of statistic
when applied to a large number of people, it tends to be correct. Really to be
sure we are not jailing innocent people, or at least keeping it to a minimum,
juries should be 99% certain of their verdicts but of course virtually no one
would ever get convicted of anything.
The ostrich factor is where we have a system
that crucifies thousands of innocent people. What the ancient legislators have
done is make the ambiguous statement ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ then they go and
bury their heads in the sand and pretend everything is fine. It quite simply
isn’t. It really is about time this idea of a hundred percent innocent or one
hundred percent guilty is buried forever. It isn’t real, even the fairies in
fairyland would have a problem with this system.
The reason we have such a system is the
pretence that if someone is found innocent, all is forgotten and life goes on
as normal. Come on, so our good friend Bill has been cleared of murder, we’ll
let the kids go picking flowers with him in the woods after sunset. Once the
accusation is made the damage is done. As a race it really is time we grew up.
The alternative of course is to allow
individual jurors to vote in percentages and any sentence must take the percentages
into account. You may put a murderer away for life with a 90% verdict but not
60%. What we have at the moment is guilty people walking free because of lack
of certainty with some juries and people being jailed who are innocent through
the zest of other juries. Life is not on and off, in or out; it’s analogue and
sentences have to be analogue. A suspected murderer with a sixty percent vote
against him must have a limited sentence and an eye must always be kept on him
but to hang him or let him go is quite simply stupid. The sensible portion of
our public will rightly keep their children away from him but equally they will
not condemn him absolutely when there is a real chance he is innocent. This is
the way grown up people think.
For anyone who doesn’t think there are a
multitude of innocent people in jail all I can say is watch trials, see how
convinced you are by the system. Always remember that if jury members are
arguing between themselves about the defendant’s guilt then there is reasonable
doubt or they wouldn’t be arguing. Have we ever seen a case where the jury
wasn’t arguing?
To again reiterate the unwanted truth. If a
jury can convict on a ten to two vote, two in twelve innocent people will be
found guilty.
Footnote
In the case of Damilola Taylor there were 3 trials featuring different defendants. How on earth can you be sure one lots to blame and then go and accuse some one else. If the police cannot make their mind up how can a jury convict? I would add that at the retrial of the second trial (is this a joke?) they did.