Monday, July 31, 2023

Stage fright in the CCRC?

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In a 2021 review of the operation of the Criminal Cases Review Commission (the Commission) for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the Wes...
Saturday, July 29, 2023

Three quite interesting appeals: live issues, police photography, and the plea of previous conviction

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Three quite interesting appeals: Refraining from irrelevancies There are times when, no matter how interesting a point is and how helpful it...
Thursday, July 20, 2023

How to instruct a jury in a criminal trial, and what is required for there to be a criminal organisation: R v Abdullahi, 2023 SCC 19

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Judges who have to prepare directions to juries in criminal trials could be assisted by studying R v Abdullahi , 2023 SCC 19 (14 July 2023)...
Thursday, July 13, 2023

Procedural delay: Morgan v R (Jamaica) [2023] UKPC 25 and Yikar v R [2023] NZCA 296

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In law, you can’t gain an advantage from your own inexcusable procedural delay. The word inexcusable makes that obvious, but is there just t...
Friday, June 16, 2023

Retrial after invalid conviction is not double jeopardy: Smith v United States 21-1576, 15 June 2023

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It has long been recognised at common law that a trial held in the wrong location does not on that ground result in a verdict that can subse...
Saturday, May 27, 2023

The interests of justice and time limits for filing conviction appeals: Pierre v R (Bahamas) [2023] UKPC 15

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Legislation that leaves judges to decide an issue “in the interests of justice”, without any indication of what that means, can leave us won...
Thursday, May 04, 2023

Fairness, efficiency and case mismanagement: R v Haevischer, 2023 SCC 11

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I once knew a judge whose smile was upside down. The corners of this person’s mouth almost reached the jaw line. When I first noticed this, ...
Saturday, April 22, 2023

Statutory delay of parole eligibility: Morgan v Ministry of Justice (Northern Ireland) [2023] UKSC 14

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The life of a criminal barrister has several sources of irritation. One is the difficulty of getting clients to see the marvelous subtlety o...