Great so you have the experience of what, 3 or 4 trials max?Son of Mathonwy wrote: ↑Sat Jul 13, 2024 10:16 amI've been on a jury. It's clear that people are very swayed by their natural sympathies, what they have in common with the accused or the victim(s).Eugene Wrayburn wrote: ↑Sat Jul 13, 2024 12:11 amNo doubts to anyone who heard all the evidence, or she'd have been found not guilty. The nature of a trial is contentious evidence on both sides. I get that it's easy to forget that if you haven't been involved in them. It really isn't uncommon to have a trial with experts in disagreement. The jury then disentangles it with the help of counsel and the judge.Son of Mathonwy wrote: ↑Tue Jul 09, 2024 10:25 am Plenty of doubts remain. The defence seem to have done a poor job in the original trial. Some of the points which should have been raised were not allowed in the retrial because the defence didn't bring them up the first time.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/art ... s-question
At the retrial the defence can call whatever evidence that is admissible that it wants. It isn't affected by what was called at the first trial. That is to be distinguished from the evidence that the Court of Appeal would be prepared to hear. They won't usually hear any evidence that was reasonably available at the trial.
The first trial didn't have experts in disagreement because the defence didn't call any experts to challenge the prosecution.
It's not clear from the article what experts, if any, were called for the retrial. However, given the 100% media coverage of Letby as a baby killing monster, it's hard to see how the jury in the retrial could have been unbiased. You have before you a serial killer of babies and are being asked if she attempted to kill another one. The result will make no difference to her sentence anyway. And a verdict of not guilty will leave the parents with a feeling that justice wasn't done. Is the verdict really a surprise?
What you miss is that the FIRST jury weren't sure on the case that had to be retried. Despite deciding themselves that she was an evil baby murderer. That's not that uncommon. For big cases like this (and frankly most cases) juries take their job incredibly seriously. And so they follow the judges direction and look at each count, and look at the evidence in each count and decide it.
There are 3 possible explanations why you wouldn't call defence experts when there are loads of prosecution experts. First, you're wholly incompetent. There's not a lot of wholly incompetent counsel who get to defend the most high profile murders, but sure it's possible. It would usually be picked up by the people who prepare the appeal though and they'd at least have a go at saying that their predecessors were incompetent. I've not read comprehensively about this trial but it doesn't seem like that was argued - just the usual bullshit of people thinking they know better who have almost invariable never run a trial themselves. Second reason is that they have instructions from their client which are contrary to the calling of expert witnesses. I don't know what it might be in this case but sometimes it does happen. Third they did get expert evidence but the expert agreed with the prosecution expert or worse said that the prosecution missed something that makes things even worse for the client.
Again, it's possible she's entirely innocent. It's possible that she is guilty but there isn't enough evidence for her to be properly convicted and it's possible that she's properly convicted. I'm unimpressed by "experts" who come out of the woodwork after the event without knowledge of the case and without having to give sworn evidence with the experts' declaration.