Summary
THE famous British case of the "Birmingham Six" involved six Irish Catholic men who had settled in England and were wrongfully convicted in 1975 of the mass murder of 21 people in explosions at pubs in Birmingham the previous year.
Fortunately, their individual and collective sufferings were not in vain. On March 14, 1991, the date of their release, the government of the United Kingdom created the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice to review the criminal justice system in England and Wales in its entirety including "the role of experts in criminal proceedings, their responsibilities to the court prosecutor and defence, and the relationship between the forensic science services and the police."Such legislation would do much to reduce, if not eliminate, protracted disputes and extensive litigation between the Crown and defence as to what disclosure the Crown must and should provide to the accused. It would also result in the police being accountable to the court concerning their duty to collect and provide all the evidence from their investigations, including any exculpatory evidence which would assist to acquit the accused.See the full content of this document
Extract
Wrongful Convictions: Lessons From England
Maria Kucher
THE famous British case of the "Birmingham Six" involved six Irish Catholic men who had settled in England and were wrongfully convicted in 1975 of the mass murder of ...See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
