Edward Colston

BiggEggo said:
My opinion that's all.
Can you legitimately go round destroying monuments to causes that you don't agree with? There's a lot of statues still standing that arguably shouldn't be if thats the case. James Cook would fall into that category for one.
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Maybe stop presenting your opinion as fact if future would be my advice

the facts are that these people have been found not guilty to have caused criminal damage
 
Yearbyred said:
thesecretbarrister.com

Do the verdicts in the trial of the Colston 4 signal something wrong with our jury system? 10 things you should know

1. What happened in this case? On 7 June 2020, in the course of a Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol, a monument of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down and thrown into …
thesecretbarrister.com thesecretbarrister.com
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This is a really great article 👍🏻 and explains some of my initial misgivings. It’s a shame jury’s aren’t expectez to explain their verdicts so we will never truly know why the 4 were not prosecuted. What’s also interesting is that regardless of evidence and rule of law the jury can decide guilty or innocent regardless - and again no explanation required.
 
GazC_MFC said:
Maybe stop presenting your opinion as fact if future would be my advice

the facts are that these people have been found not guilty to have caused criminal damage
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I presented my opinion as my opinion.

I fully respect the findings of the court even if I don't completely agree with them.

You might want to check your interpretation of what a personal opinion actually is.
 
FatCat said:
This is a really great article 👍🏻 and explains some of my initial misgivings. It’s a shame jury’s aren’t expectez to explain their verdicts so we will never truly know why the 4 were not prosecuted. What’s also interesting is that regardless of evidence and rule of law the jury can decide guilty or innocent regardless - and again no explanation required.
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That's the whole point of a jury though. They decide on the basis of the evidence that's been presented to them. They jurors don't have to justify their verdict, all they have to do is decide, and - quite rightly - not explain.

A different jury, presented with the same case, same facts, same laws, same defendants, the same lawyers and the same judge might come to a different verdict. Jury trials are unpredictable because juries are unpredictable.

For whoever it was talking about precedents, jury trials don't create precedents.
 
FatCat said:
This is a really great article 👍🏻 and explains some of my initial misgivings. It’s a shame jury’s aren’t expectez to explain their verdicts so we will never truly know why the 4 were not prosecuted. What’s also interesting is that regardless of evidence and rule of law the jury can decide guilty or innocent regardless - and again no explanation required.
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The jury shouldn't be on trial. They've seen the evidence and heard the arguments and made what they believe to be the correct and just decision.
 
I often wonder why we bother with courts and the legal process we have in this country, with all the evidence scrutinised properly and then a jury under guidance from a judge determining the outcome of a case. It'd obviously be cheaper and quicker to just post a brief outline of a case onto a football message board and get a verdict and sentence sorted easily 😁
 
BiggEggo said:
You might want to check your interpretation of what a personal opinion actually is.
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BoroMart said:
I think Gaz's point is more around opinions aren't worth the same as facts and should be treated as such....hope I'm not putting words into his mouth
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An opinion becomes a false belief once an undisputable fact has proven it to be wrong.

In my opinion BiggEggo is a Mackem
 
Scrote said:
An opinion becomes a false belief once an undisputable fact has proven it to be wrong.

In my opinion BiggEggo is a Mackem
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If a court judgement makes an outcome an indisputable fact, then what is the purpose of The Supreme Court and The Criminal Cases Review Commission ?

Close to 1000 sub-post masters would still be convicted criminals if their original guilty verdicts were deemed indisputable facts. Fortunately they did not have Scrote to confirm that upon them.

In my opinion Scrote is a Tory.
And yes that is very different to 'Scrote is a Tory'

Enjoy the rest of your day chaps.
 
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BiggEggo said:
If a court judgement makes an outcome an indisputable fact, then what is the purpose of The Supreme Court and The Criminal Cases Review Commission ?
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If the Supreme Court overturns the decision then the known facts will have changed.

The thing being disputed will be the process not the outcome - even if the outcome is the cause of the protest. The Supreme Court would have to show that the defence used to acquit was somehow wrongly interpreted. They can't just rock up and decide they disagree with the judgement.

At that point I could hold an opinion that the original interpretation was sound but if the SC changed the outcome then the defendants will have objectively caused criminal damage. There would be no doubt involved and therefore no opinion available once those facts were known.

Unless we're using as yet unknown definitions of "opinion" in which case all bets are off and we might as well just abandon language.
 
Corcaigh_the_Cat said:
The jury shouldn't be on trial. They've seen the evidence and heard the arguments and made what they believe to be the correct and just decision.
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No of course they shouldn’t but it would be interesting to understand the reason that led to the not guilty verdict out of the many possible reasons!
 
FatCat said:
No of course they shouldn’t but it would be interesting to understand the reason that led to the not guilty verdict out of the many possible reasons!
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The jury would be in contempt of court if they divulged that information.
 
Scrote said:
If the Supreme Court overturns the decision then the known facts will have changed.

The thing being disputed will be the process not the outcome - even if the outcome is the cause of the protest. The Supreme Court would have to show that the defence used to acquit was somehow wrongly interpreted. They can't just rock up and decide they disagree with the judgement.

At that point I could hold an opinion that the original interpretation was sound but if the SC changed the outcome then the defendants will have objectively caused criminal damage. There would be no doubt involved and therefore no opinion available once those facts were known.

Unless we're using as yet unknown definitions of "opinion" in which case all bets are off and we might as well just abandon language.
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They can't do that because they can't know how the jury interpreted the defence. The jury could have acquitted for reasons entirely unconnected to any defence presented in court. They can only rule if there was an error in law in the instructions given to the jury.
 
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