If you are taking the unit 3 controlled assessment, these are the exact model answers I used which got me an A grade. These are well developed answers, without links to the brief (as that is relevant to your exam).
A just verdict is one that is deserved, lawful and proper. It is a verdict that does
justice to the facts of the case, finding the guilty, guilty and the innocent not guilty.
For example, Colin Pitchfork murdered and raped 2 women but at the time not
enough evidence to take him to court. However, the development of DNA analysis
meant that eventually, they were able to use the analysis to be able to get a
conviction. Following DNA analysis, they found that his DNA was all over the victim's
body and clothing which makes the evidence irrefutable. This was a just verdict.
However, sometimes there isn’t a just verdict. In the case of Stephen Lawrence,
when the police began investigating Lawrence’s case, they didn’t collect sufficient
evidence for the jury to believe that Gary Dobson and David Norris were guilty. They
were acquitted in the original trial. Very shortly after this, new evidence came to life
which was enough to be able to convict Dobson and Norris but that could not
happen due to the double jeopardy rule. Institutional racism led to a non-effective
investigation to convict in the original trial. Dobson and Norris had been free for 10
years before the double jeopardy law was abolished (2002) and only after that they
appeared in court once more for the murder of Lawrence. Hence, there was not a
just verdict produced by the court.
, Similar in Billy Dunlop’s case it went all the way through to the end and he was found
non-guilty. He knew about the double jeopardy rule and had confessed after the
trial, that he murdered Julie Hogg, hence, he could not go to trial. Anne Ming (Hogg’s
mother) campaigned for the abolishment of the double jeopardy rule. Following the
removal of the double jeopardy law after a successful campaign, Dunlop was then
convicted but the initial verdict was not just.
In other cases, Jury Equity may produce a just verdict. Jury equity is when an
individual is clearly of an offense, but the jury decides a person should be not guilty
due to the circumstances in which they committed the crime. For example, Alan
Blythe was convicted of possessing and supplying marijuana. He was caught
distributing marijuana and in court used the defence of ‘duress of circumstances’
claiming that he only done so for his wife who was terminally ill with cerebral palsy,
and it was the only thing that relieved her pain. Juries sometimes do this when they
believe the existing law, or the punishment is unfair.
The jury can also produce a just verdict when there is jury nullification which is when
someone is clearly guilty, but the jury decides they are non-guilty due to their bias
towards the individual. An example of this is in the case of the Ku Klux Klan. In the US
there have been cases of all white members refusing to convict members of the Ku
Klux Klan.
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