Land of The Brave, Home of The Free

There are any number of reasons that I am glad I don’t live in the USA, but chief amongst them are the Sub Judice laws that we have in this country. Because I think if I had to live in a country without these laws, I would go insane.

Just over one week ago, two police officers were shot and killed in Manchester. For a few days, there were stories about the man arrested on suspicion of their murder.

However now that he has been bound over for trial – charged with the crimes rather than just being questioned about them – the stories have all stopped. There is nothing more in the press or the news websites or on TV, other than the fact he has been charged and bound over for trial.

And why?

Because in this country it is illegal for the press (in any form) to publish any story that might prejudice the ability for the trial to be free and fair.

What does that mean?

Well – putting aside the fact I am not a lawyer and so I don’t know the exact ins and outs of it – it goes something like this :-

You can’t publish any stories that express an opinion about the guilt or innocence of the person on trial.

So if you find out that their childhood friend thinks they were a little bastard as a child and probably did it, you can not actually publish that story.

And you can not run a series of vox-pops, asking people whether they think the accused is innocent or guilty.

If you find out that there is a compelling piece of evidence that means the person is completely innocent, you can not publish that either.

Because you are not permitted to prejudice the trial in either direction – whether for guilt or for innocence.

(I should point out that if you find something that means they are innocent, you can probably turn it over to the police or the Crown Prosecution Service, who in turn might choose to drop the case, at which point you can start publishing again).

Once the trial has started, you can report on the trial. What the witnesses said, what the judge said, what the prosecution and defence said.

But ONLY what they said, and what evidence was provided. You can NOT express opinions about the evidence, nor can you express opinions about the various testimony or anything else. ("The primary defence witness looked uncomfortable while giving evidence about the accused’s character" – you are suggesting the witness was lying and the person was guilty).

And anything that is said when the jury is not present can not be reported at all, because it is probably going to be very prejudicial indeed.

Once the trial is finished and the verdict has been announced you can go back to reporting whatever you want about the person who was convicted/acquitted of the crime (liable/slander laws notwithstanding).

A few years back I was in an online political forum (of sorts), and I explained all this of a number of American posters.

They went nuts, telling me that any government who was willing to limit freedom of the press to such a massive extent was clearly on the verge of becoming a police state.

They could not understand why any of these rules were a good idea, and how – when I am a passionate advocate of Freedom of the Press – I was an equally passionate advocate of these rules.

And try as I might, I could just not get them to understand why I thought the system in the USA was so utterly appalling and an insult to the idea of "fair trial".

If the UK didn’t have these rules – if we had to live with the farce that masquerades as the American judicial system – then I am pretty sure that we would be flooded with stories about Dale Cregan. About his past, about any previous crimes he might have convicted, about his childhood and about any number of other things that would be so unbelievably prejudicial that any trial that would follow would be a joke.

But because we have these laws – because – way back when – our government decided that ensuring someone gets a fair trial is paramount and that every other consideration is secondary. And so Mr Cregan will get a fair trial based on the evidence provided, not on the reported hearsay of someone who met him ten years ago for all of five minutes.

And while it might mean some limited restrictions on Freedom of the Press for a limited time, I think most people would agree that the pursuit of justice should be more important than ratings and newspaper sales.

At least most people who live in civilized countries.