Trial Fairness Case Study

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An analysis of trial fairness in the case of R. v Taylor (1994) 98 Cr. App. R. 361. Did media coverage affect the trial? Media coverage of trials in the digital age has become a considerable issue in the UK and traditional legal remedies to reduce the influence of the press on jurors’ bias appear to be inefficient. In recent years, the discussion of fair trial and free press has been raised due to the fact that in some criminal cases especially high profile criminal cases, the right of defendants has been infringed. High profile criminal case can be loosely described as a case of the suspect who is a well-known person such as a celebrity, an actor, and a businessman as well as a case, which receives massive attention even though the accused …show more content…

It is stated that “the true injustice of exaggerated publicity is its ability to present unsupported views which may affect the trial in unchangeable ways” (Breheny and Kelly, 2012: 377-378) which means the publicity prejudice causes partial trials without verified evidence and exploits the defendants’ rights. In addition, the unproven opinion usually spreads extensively and rapidly which is true, for instance the Taylor sisters were prosecuted by media they were already believed to be killers and this belief still haunted them despite the fact that they were released. Furthermore, although other features have a significant part in biased jury, prejudicial publicity is the most influent cause of bias (Geragos, 2006). The harmful effect of press disclosure resulting in cases R. v Taylor (1994) was the publication of the still from victim’s wedding video in newspapers and the headlines of newspapers, yet it was never revealed in the courtroom; therefore, during the appeal, the convictions were considered as unsafe and unsatisfied because the clarification of witness’ statement was failed. Nonetheless, Carey (1985), suggests that from the analysis of practical observes on public prejudice reveals that the juries’ decisions based on the information in courtrooms rather that on the external data from the media. As well as Frasca (1988, cited in Geragos, 2006) who implies that there are only a few cases have the press disclosure problem, conversely Geragos (2006: 1178) argues that “the problem is qualitative, rather than quantitative”. Frasca (1988)’s argument is insufficient for the media coverage issue due to concentration only on the number of cases; in contrast, Gerogos (2006)’s argument focuses on the cruelty of the problem which nobody should deserve and also suggests that the method to deal with those remarkable cases is what correctly

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