Government ordered to pay $101 million to men wrongly imprisoned

[homesick_american 1]

Wow! I don't like this part also.

The reforms - which also allow hearsay evidence to be admissible in court - come under the new Criminal Justice act.

I can't believe that they would give up any of these protections.

I don't think they had much of a choice GaryC; the most recent government there was jaw-droppingly authoritarian for such a "free" country...sort of like the current one we have here. At least we still have double jeopardy protection though!

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I was going off the experience of a family friend - I attended his son's court hearing with him when I first came over here and was shocked how a relatively trivial charge was trumped up by the District Attorney to "rape and blackmail". Luckily it didn't go that far - but it went far enough that the charges could not be withdrawn easily.

Not sure what I think about the Double Jeopardy thing in the UK. Its a double-edged sword really - as is the original law. Hence OJ walks around free despite the entire country being convinced that he committed those murders (indeed per the ruling of the civil suit and subsequent evidence). Same thing with the Steven Lawrence trial.

From reading that article it doesn't seem like its automatic either - its still under the purview of the courts (rather than say... the Home Secretary - whose office has tried to dabble in the judicial system rather more than they should), more specifically the court of appeal. That said our judicial system (as in the degree of separation from executive government) is rather archaic.