[Gllug] Editors

[home at alexhudson.com]

On Tue, Jul 31, 2001 at 01:50:36PM +0000, Bruce Richardson wrote:
> You lost your right to unincriminating silence in the 1994 Criminal 
> Justice and Public Order Act.  You can still be silent but a jury has 
> the right to  convict you on the basis of it.  Assuming you get a jury 
> trial, thanks to nice Mr Straw.

They don't get to convict you on it at all! We saw this in the Archer trial,
when Archer didn't say anything. Paraphrasing the judge, "If the defendent
chooses not to speak, you may construe that he has no answer to the charge,
or none that would bear examination. You may take that as support for ..
evidence to convict" - that is, you can take it as greater support for the
prosecution, but you can't use it on it's own, nor should it influence your
decision either way.

Not that I agree with it - I agree entirely with you, the 94 CJ Act sucks
big time. 

Cheers,

Alex.

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