Juries 'should hear phone taps' to nail crime gangs

[Brian Morrison]

On Thu, 12 Sep 2002 13:19:27 +0100, David Swarbrick wrote:

>The basic difficulty about evidence obtained covertly is that if the 
>system is to be fair to the defendant, he must be able to challenge the 
>content and reliability of the evidence as evidence. There will be many 
>situations where a prosecutor woud not ant to disclose enough 
>information to allow that fairness. If he cannot, or will not, then I 
>do not think he should be allowed to use it. If he can then I do not 
>think there should be a huge problem.

So what is needed is the equivalent to the caution where a person is
warned about a court taking inference from their silence. The court
should say "The prosecution wishes to present evidence obtained and
verified in a manner that they are not prepared to disclose. In the
light of this please infer that very little credence can be placed upon
it". I know that there is sometimes good corroboration of such veiled
information, but in cases where it is not that might tip the scales
back towards the defence.

-- 
Brian Morrison                                       bdm@fenrir.org.uk
              do you know how far this has gone?
               just how damaged have I become?
                                      'Even Deeper' by Nine Inch Nails