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Post by Orangeotang on Feb 12, 2005 13:20:26 GMT 1
Having read unconstitutiononred's blog site, questioning the strength of the case against Luke Mitchell, I have noticed a number of glaring inaccuracies in Khalid's averments.
The most so, is Khalid claims that Luke comments regarding slitting someone's throat is irrelevent because Jodi's throat was intact.
However, it has been widely reported that Jodi's throat was cut. Perhaps he should check his basic facts before attempting to campaign against the conviction of Mr Mitchell.
Also, Khalid goes on to mention that the indication of the forensic psychologist, Mr Egan is flimsy, supposedly because we all exhibit signs of a liar, outlined at the bottom of the page ie partial shrug, playing with hair etc.
However, it is important to remember that such a psychologist would not dare interpret any one of those actions in singularity to be the indication of a liar - he would closely examine the context and patterns which we would expect an expert in his field to do.
Either way, it is noteworthy that Mr Egan's evidence was not the prosecution's case in it's entirety, there were many other aspects of the case which point to Luke's guilt.
The ironic thing here, though, is that those who are vocally opposing Luke's conviction on the basis of flimsy evidence, have themselves the most glaring of omissions and untruths in their own statements.
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Post by TheWeeMan on Feb 12, 2005 13:21:48 GMT 1
In a criminal court in Scotland Bobbie Dog, all that you say above is completely irrelevant.
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Post by Orangeotang on Feb 12, 2005 13:31:23 GMT 1
Quite. Hearsay is not admissable as evidence in Scottish Courts. The point I am making is that Khalid's blog questioning the guilt of Luke Mitchell goes not further itself, than to try to sway certainty over minor issues such as hearsay of the throat comments, or the opinion of Mr Egan.
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Post by Bobbie dog as guest on Feb 12, 2005 14:56:07 GMT 1
Gerard's post flags up the degree to which appeals are technical procedures: that they occur "within the box" of legality and legal process. But law itself, any concrete legal system and process, is embedded within a social context and process: and that society in turn occurs within more feral and transcendental setting; societies create themselves. Conviction by peer driven jury legality tends to be relative to the prejudices of those peers: and any evidence leading can only ever be no more or less probabilistic than science itself; the legal conviction of Luke Mitchell proves nothing. What it indicates is a collective determination that reliance on legal process is preferable to not so relying. What is always on trial is the legal process itself. What we settle for is the primacy of collective determination. Luke Mitchell has several grounds for appeal. Firstly: that the judge was not sufficiently knowledgeable about that over which he presided; and I would suggest, that for some people, this was illustrated by the opinion accompanying sentencing. Secondly, that Luke Mitchell was not properly legally represented: by virtue of his council not anticipating the nature of the case to be led against his client; and by the reality that presenting defense against such prosecution, perhaps because novel, required expertise beyond the capability of Luke’s legal team. Thirdly: that the logical basis of causative evidence is fundamentally flawed; where it fails to take cognizance of how variation in jury prejudice will affect verdict. Fourthly: that much of the expert witnessing was flawed; where the disciplines involved were not fully drawn upon, as to potential rebuttal. Fifthly, that the police investigation may have been so flawed and biased: as to have robbed any contribution by parties later drawn in, of prospect of being unbiased; that the momentum of a default collusion between media and investigating police, was of such an order and nature, as to have fundamentally removed any prospect of fair trial. Sixthly: that this has been a watershed case, where the demarcation between "opinion" and procedure has been crucially blurred; where, in the absence of perspective to deal with this matter, the trial has not had opportunity of proper direction. Gerard properly brings up the fact that the legal establishment, as it must, will insist that appeal must be procedural, and occur "within the box" of prevailing legal process. However, it is inevitable that those who will press for this verdict to be overturned as unsafe, will do this, at least partly from outside the box: where the motivation for so doing, not only sees intent to safeguard Luke Mitchell, but seeks to safeguard law and legal process itself. The question of the putatively innocent party who is therefore denied leniency such as parole, is a philosophically and psychologically vexed one. That an innocent party wrongly convicted, should only have the ameliorating redress of "admitting" guilt: rather as heretical victims of Communist or Catholic orthodoxy only had the options of perishing, recanting, or recanting with perishing; always seems to me primitive and perverse. Again this ties into the current "war on terror": where, if you tell your captors what they want to hear, then things can go better for you; the collective process comes to have such primacy, that notions of individual rights or empirical validity, no longer have the place or value we once gave them.
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Post by Bobbie dog as guest on Feb 12, 2005 15:08:45 GMT 1
In a criminal court in Scotland Bobbie Dog, all that you say above is completely irrelevant. I would anticipate that you are technically correct here Gerard. But, the evidence led by the prosecution was all about what was plausible to Luke's peers. What was led in this was structured hearsay, formalised opinion, expert interpretation. The legal process itself has blurred a line here, where it has opened the door, perhaps the lid to a Pandoras's box, to everyhting which might ground alternate perspective in such action. With no forensic evidence, no data of physical science: this case has introduced indicative profiling as alternate "evidence"; where this evidence has been led to peers, who simply have no basis for critique. My concern, beyond immediate concern for justice for Luke Mitchell: is that a legal process proceeding on such basis simply becomes unaccountable; and verdicts become effectively driven by collective pre-judice, to a novel degree that becomes fundamentallly concerning.
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Post by Bobbie dog as guest on Feb 12, 2005 15:24:50 GMT 1
Orangeotang, you are absolutely correct, as to how important it is going to be to get basic facts rights. However, I think that those on what could be two partisan sides to a debate, should recieve equal and fair treatment. The prosecution is not to fall just because individual elements (such as no physical injuries on Luke Mitchell) fail: and similarly with the defense; this is a complex case, and both sides will make mistakes in presentation. Malice in neither side should be presumed. What we are required to do, in what could turn out to be succeeding years: is forensically lay out and examine, every perspective and detail of this case. There are extant traditions which routinely provide commentary which reveal the bias and prejudice of the discharge of any professional role. Such bias is inevitable, intrinsic to being human. Where we go wrong, is in implying that it can ever be absent. The point is not to seek to dismiss the commentary of Mr Egan, through revealing its bias and assumption: but to qualify it through accurately discerning what bias and assumption was operative. The concern in this case, is that no qualifying testimony was led. Getting better data is not always easy. Can anybody advise me as to how I might obtain a transcript of the trial? Whatever we do, IMO, we must recognise the prospect of deep and driven emotions in this debate, about the Luke Mitchell case: and keep stabilising that debate by exercising careful forebearance towards those of alternate perspective.
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Post by Orangeotang on Feb 12, 2005 15:55:30 GMT 1
An interesting one, the question of the absence of injuries on Luke Mitchell. Would that not be consistant with him being much taller, male, and stronger than his smaller female victim, and strangling her from behind before mutilating her post mortem, as serveral media reports indicate was presented as fact at the trial? Should he submit an appeal, the facts will become available for public viewing on www.scotcourts.gov.uk/index1.aspOtherwise, I don't know of any publically available transcript, though I too, am interested in obtaining one.
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Post by TheWeeMan on Feb 12, 2005 18:31:46 GMT 1
Transcript-wise the nearest you are going to get will be a case report that will eventually be published in the Scots Law Times.
The SLT, and many other legal journals are available from a University law library, or the likes of the Mitchell Library in Glasgow.
Absolutly guaranteed the appeal will be published as well, as HMA v Mitchell (2005) will become a case to be pored over by law students for decades to come.
I look forward to hear the grounds his counsel hope to appeal his case. At the moment I see none.
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Post by Bobbie dog as guest on Feb 12, 2005 19:00:38 GMT 1
Like most everyone else, during the trial I only had knowledge of what was being led as the prosecution and defence cases, through what was being reported in the general press, TV and radio. Although I read and saved many articles, and have Google listings on many others: I couldn't pretend to have mastery of the trial facts; even while I was reading this or that, I was thinking "I'm going to have to put all this together, after the trial: I'm not convinced by the evidence being led, and I can begin to see just how it might be challenged; but I'm not fully answering and pursuing every point, as it is coming up. This is just way too big for me, and I'm only seeing shapes as the case emerges in court; right now I'm just an observer. When it's over, I'm going to have to put myself in possession of all the data, and just begin to workshop the whole case: building whatever is needed to work this through." Short of a transcript, maybe I'm just going to have to trawl through all the media articles, and build some perspective in which to collate what they report. I had a look at the scotcourts site, and its pretty specifically legal and technical. I could see how a suggested attack from behind, by a stronger and taller party, might allow for that party not sustaining injuries: but I would want to see that suggestion fully modelled, and correlated with all the other data; such as crime scene forensics, Luke Mitchell contamination, and the bruising to Luke Mitchell's flesh that would be consistent with the forces involved in strangling and restraining a struggling Jodi. It's the absence of corroborating forensics, at any point, while plausible suggestion is tacked to plausible suggestion: that is legally and scientifically concerning; where, at every point of such lacuna, the prosecution must fall back on modelling Luke as a demonically intelligent schemer, who managed to destroy all the evidence. This is all antithetical to Ockham's razor: this is far from being the simplest manner of explaining the empirical data to hand; this demonic joker that is the portrayed Luke Mitchell, that is used by the prosecution to plug all the gaps in their case logic and data set, is a very un-Ockham factor. The Flower's Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy suffered similar qualities: and in more and more "expert" testimony, that from psychology included, similar extreme attenuation in interpretation can be observed. As organisations and institutional process generally comes to require case favouring them to be made: then the "experts" are coming forward and being found. This phenomena requires study and analysis in itself. The concerning and immediate matter concerns attenuation in interpretation: where those receiving this "expert" testimony, may be in no position to qualify it in terms of how that "expert" is positioned within their discipline of origin; such that conflicting or rebutting testimony from that discipline is not fully led. We saw this also in the use of "intelligence" in the run up to the war in Iraq: that there were no WMD, and yet tragic consequence unleashed in assuming them; should cause the institutionally organised world to take fundamental stock of itself, for it gives mark to the quality of the whole "expert" mediated data set on which it relies. What is unusual about Iraq, is that this data set was able to be challenged so successfully: generally, an institutional process can make adjustments to make empirical data deficits disappear in the wash. The notion that we exist in one unified, single empirical, simply shared world, is something of a convenient chimera: where rather, we always find ourselves in some, now rapidly and globally changing, social network which shapes how and what we see. An apparent data can be spun or disappeared: in complex social processes involving nations, economies, media, every dynamic in what we share; where no perspective or discipline is immune from what is involved in this. In presented "expert" testimony, sometimes in legal cases, our lives and this complex process come in contact. That "expert" witness giving must now be regulated: and to do that we require perspective which comprehends the phenomenon; and we need a populace educated in that perspective. Currently, what we have is a frontier situation where it comes to "expert" witness. When, as a citizen, you challenge an "expert", it is a daunting prospect: to countervail the "expert's" training, and the interlocking perspectival refinement of their discipline, is a very big ask; yet, time and again today, simply to have justice, that is exactly what ordinary citizens are called upon to do.
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Post by Bobbie dog as guest on Feb 13, 2005 12:32:18 GMT 1
www.sundayherald.com/print47729One of Luke's legal representatives states to the press that "unfairness of evidence" will be one ground of appeal. The defense team claim that the Prosecution broke a pre-trial agreement to share all information. The defense claim that the prosecution went "completely against the concept of fairness" to secure conviction. The wording of this indicates the two pronged attack on evidence that is necessary. Firstly, where that attack remains strictly within extant principles and protocols: the prosecution broke with established principles; and they failed in keeping good faith with the defense. Secondly, where freedom is retained by the defense to open up concern in the public mind, as to the nature of the evidence per se: causitive evidence, where no single element can hit target of conclusive proof, or even empirical proof, remains fundamentally suspect; where there is relation between the bad faith manifested by the prosecution, and the causitive evidence to which they had recourse. If the prosecution case was based in discrediting Luke Mitchell and his mother: the defense case for appeal may well partly lie in discrediting the prosecution in their having chosen this prosecution strategy; that strategy being shaped by a determination to have conviction even in the absence of evidence. Expect this discrediting of the prosecution, which may occur over an extended period of years, to be both broad and specific. The canons of evidentiality and evidence can be challenged. The people and institutions mediating the prosecution can be challenged. The social and political setting in which this trial occurred can be challenged. The evidentiality is fundamentally flawed: and those flaws were created in a determination to conviction; these will remain the primary grounds of appeal over the coming years. That determination to conviction, in this case, whose precedent may lead to this in other cases: has seen that determination supercede evidence and due process itself; conviction has become more important than legal process itself. This appeal process has the potential to polarise public opinion, if properly managed: it has potential to engender and reflect schism as regards current social reform; it can both mediate challenge of those reforms, and itself be challenged if and as elements of these reforms fail. This is a very major appeal event: the issues involved are the issues of our times.
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Post by bobbiedog on Feb 13, 2005 12:38:58 GMT 1
This appeal process has the potential to polarise public opinion, if properly managed: it has potential to engender and reflect schism as regards current social reform; it can both mediate challenge of those reforms, and itself be challenged if and as elements of these reforms fail.
The above should read:
This appeal process has the potential to polarise public opinion, if properly managed: it has potential to engender and reflect schism as regards current social reform; it can both mediate challenge of those reforms, and itself be strengthened if and as elements of these reforms fail.
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Post by TheWeeMan on Feb 13, 2005 13:02:58 GMT 1
Manson: 'Don't blame me for Jodi' BBC News Scotland 13th February 2005 news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4261227.stmPlus extensive other links that include: Trial News Boyfriend guilty of Jodi's murder 'Ignore emotion' Jodi jurors told 'No evidence' from Jodi accused Jodi body pictures shown at trial Case background Mitchell profile How teenager Luke Mitchell turned from boyfriend to killer Evidence that convicted Mitchell Jodi Jones: A uniquely hard case Jodi the 'free spirited' teenager 'My little mentor lives always' Other sources Daily Express Manson Dismisses Killing Links Daily Star Manson Dismisses Killing Links Daily Mail Manson dismisses killing links Telegraph 20 years for Jodie's killer Guardian Unlimited Jodi's killer to serve at least 20 years in jail
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Post by Bobbie dog as guest on Feb 13, 2005 16:51:47 GMT 1
Lord Nimmo Smith said to Luke Mitchell, in referring to a Manson painting "I think that you carried an image of the paintings in your memory when you killed Jodi." To my mind this symbolises and articulates the manner in which the judge never had proper grasp of that over which he presided in this instance. Where, as consequence he allowed the prosecution to lead what should have been inadmissable evidence. Folk psychology, only little different from naked prejudice, has been allowed to masquerade as professional and scientifically based psychology. For Lord Nimmo to hold to such understanding as a private citizen is unremarkable. To have such understanding be the basis for the direction of a trial in which psychological profiling has been central, is simply unacceptable. Unless it can be proved to the contrary, Lord Nimmo is not qualified to adjudicate in matters of psychology: and without such qualification he was not fitted to oversee and direct this trial. The matter of qualification would have to put Lord Nimmo in a position to fully understand the ground from which folk and professional psychology raises it perspectives.
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Post by tinchick on Feb 13, 2005 21:12:21 GMT 1
read yesterday that there will be no prosecution being pursued of Mrs Mitchell for her alleged perjury during this trial and that some un-named source said it wasn't in the public interest to pursue her for this crime, as her being found innocent would cast a lifeline to the appeal of her son. surely, in an ideal world, this would be rejected by the public. but the scary thing is that most people I have managed to engage in discussion regard this as the right thing, despite the obvious discrepancies
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Post by Tuesg on Feb 13, 2005 22:05:38 GMT 1
Manson: 'Don't blame me for Jodi' I was wondering how long it would have taken till Manson spoke out. People seem to like to find something to blame these days other than our society. If Luke did do it, then it is because he is seriously disturbed, not because some rock star made him. I used to listen to Manson when I was 14, still do sometimes. I’m perfectly normal thank you very much.
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