COMPARING THE PRINCIPLES OF JUSTICE TO THE JOHN BUTTON CASE

High-Quality Evidence:

A principle of justice is ‘High-Quality Evidence’, which means that in any court case, the evidence presented should be High-Quality and reliable. This principle was not shown in the John Button case, the evidence that got him sentenced was the confession that the police of the government forced Button to sign using violence. The confession was accepted and assisted in the sentence for Button. The police had no evidence to prove that Button murdered Anderson, which is why they made Button sign the confession so they could have something to present, but the evidence was false and forced, making the evidence unreliable and invalid which was later on realised. Button even made up a story because he thought that he would be let go if he did what the police told him to, “Rosemary was walking on the left-hand edge of the road close to the edge of the bitumen. Before I realised what happened, I had hit her with the left-hand side of the front of my car. When I hit her, I felt a loud crunch and I carried her a few yards on the front of my vehicle.”. All of the evidence is unreliable and untrue proving that the John Button Case did not reach High-Quality Evidence.

The Presumption of Innocence:

The Presumption of Innocence is that the accused will not be treated as a criminal, but instead innocent unless proven guilty. This Principle was not used in the John Button Case. There was plenty of evidence that proved Button innocent that was ignored. A piece of evidence that was ignored was the damage on the left front side of Button’s car that was said to be caused when he hit Anderson with his car. But when the damage and Anderson’s injuries were further searched, it didn’t match and make sense. Before the trial, John Button had gotten into a car accident with a description that perfectly matched the damage on the car. This evidence was ignored and more focused on what everyone assumed at the start, that John Button was guilty. Even with no valid evidence, and poor attention to the principles of justice, Button was still said to be guilty, just like what everyone assumed at the start of the original trial.

Right to Remain Silent:

The Right to Remain Silent means that the accused has the right to remain silent when being interrogated, this is so the accused doesn’t accidentally reveal incriminating information as everything said by the accused can be used against them in court. Button’s right to remain silent was not respected when he was being interrogated by the police. During interrogation, after Button said that he didn’t do anything referring to the injuries of Anderson, despite this the police proceeded to physically assault Button to force him to sign the confession saying that if he signed it, it meant that he confesses to intentionally hitting Anderson with his car, which was entirely untrue. The confession was used in the trial and assisted with getting Button declared guilty of the murder of Anderson and his sentence/punishment for murdering her.