The principles of justice are what I call the “pillars” of a case. When properly upheld they fully support a case fairly and lawfully. However, in the case that even just one principle is undermined, it can unbalance the justice in a case and can even cause other ‘pillars’ to collapse. These principles are crucial as they help the law come to top conclusions and for cases to be properly solved and closed. In the case of Andrew Mallard, however, the Justice Principle ‘Pillars’ were heavily undermined which resulted in unbalance of justice in his case.
On the afternoon of Monday, May 23, 1994, A jeweler, Pamela Lawrence was bludgeoned at her shop Flora Metallica. She later died in hospital that day. Andrew Mallard was one out of a 136 possible suspects that were brought to the police’s attention after being placed in Greylands Psychiatric Hospital due to him committing a robbery while impersonating a member of the police force. He was pulled out of psychiatric care and interviewed for 11+ hours in which he was fed information by police to repeat back as a ‘confession’ which resulted in his 20 years jail sentence. Mallard wasn’t released until a few years later when undercover journalists dug through sources to find unused and manipulated evidence, which helped him earn himself a won retrial and 1+ million dollars compensation.
Mr Andrew Mallard 
Ms Pam Lawrence
Having high-quality evidence in a case is crucial to maintaining the balance of fairness in a court of law. This means that all evidence gathered is included in a court case, call evidence is thoroughly investigated and checked (reliability), and there is to be no manipulation of evidence for one benefit whether that includes changing statements, taking advantage of naive interviewees etc. all these criteria being met in a case means that proper usage of high-quality evidence has been achieved. the principle of high-quality evidence is significant because you could say it’s one of the ‘pillars’ that must be upheld in the case otherwise it will leave justice balanced and cause negative effects on other main principles causing a case to collapse. a case is not a case without evidence, whether it be evidence of a weapon or evidence of death, so this means the evidence presented in a case can make or break the outcome, again shining light on the heavy importance of high-quality evidence. looking into the Mallard case, a seriously large portion of crucial evidence was withheld on the day of mallards trial, including biometric (weapon/fingerprint) tests, and genuine police notes. the only evidence presented at the trial well possibly fake undersigned interview notes and a 20-minute portion out of 11 hours worth of interview footage, when mallard (out of context) was talking about what he would do if he was the murderer. of course, the evidence that was shared was against Mallard’s case, which therefore shows how this principle was so heavily compromised. Even When considering the huge lengths that this principle was compromised, the fact that there was at least some form of evidence presented at the trial with the possibly fake and unsigned police notes and the actual clip of interview footage shows this principle was somewhat upheld. though the principle was heavily and mainly disregarded, it wasn’t completely thrown out of the picture. Though current courts are a lot more strict with how they follow the principles of justice, I still feel that there is more effort that could be put in to protect this principle. because we can’t control the actions of police unless we were in a higher position, I would say to have a middleman or some kind of supervisor present during the process of evidence collection and distribution. This will ensure to tone down bias/misbehaviour in the evidence collection and distribution process, which would hopefully prevent this principle from being compromised anymore in the future. To summarise, this principle was mostly compromised and barely upheld
One of the principles of justice I believe to be most important is a presumption of innocence, due to it being the factor that proves an accused being either guilty or not guilty in a case. This principle is hugely important as bias can seep its way into this principle which can corrupt it and can also cause an imbalance in justice and fairness in a case. presumption of innocence guarantees that no guilt can be presumed unless the accused is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, meaning that any opinions or any other factors can affect an accused’s status unless it is high-quality evidence. Presumption of innocence was heavily and ridiculously compromised in the mallard case due to the case information being shared with the public before the trial, meaning that the media and other people could have built biases towards any of the parties and spread their opinions far and wide which would eventually have reached the judge or jury working for the trial, resulting in the most likely presuming guilt and disregarding any other evidence or facts. Aside from the fact that many of the court members would have been biased, the fact that a Jerry was even included compromises this case even more as since the jury is a part of the general public they are very likely to be affected by the opinions of the media and other fellow jury or family members, which can transfer into a final opinion in a court case. there have been cases where the jury has been removed due to heavy media influence but why not this case? even though we have yet another principle that has been completely and utterly tarnished, it was still minuscule E supported even though many people’s opinions were affected the case still went on its own and it didn’t just start by stating mallard was guilty and then end. evidence was brought up, witnesses were cold and the court trial went through as normal. this principle was only upheld by a minuscule amount and it wouldn’t have taken a lot to prevent this from happening in this case and in future cases. there should be options for trials do not have a jury due to outside media leaking information and also biased opinions that can affect the general public, especially the case if members of the same community in the jury which is very likely.
Another principle of justice that was compromised in the Mallard case was the right to appeal. The Australian court allows people who are in custody from a court case to appeal for a retrial if they are dissatisfied with the outcome of the trial and if they provide reasonable grounds for said appeal. This is important as it can help amend principles of justice that may have been broken in a previous trial, and allow arrested ‘guilt’ to have a say if the odds were heavily unbalanced for them, well they were falsely accused etc. Andrew mallard did file multiple appeals and did end up getting released from jail, but when we look at that the journey that was taken to get to that point took a lot of work and effort. undercover journalists how to assist Mallard by looking for evidence where they ended up finding withheld evidence that would have supported Mallard in his trial. many of my lids appeals were also waved away or rejected, giving him not even an opportunity for a single retrial. I can conclude that while this principle was somewhat supported, the cons outweigh the pros and the process which Mallard went through two get a successful accepted appeal was too much effort to be realistically obtained by any other people in this situation. I believe that appeals should be accepted at least once even if a retrial is most likely going to result in no change in the verdict. it gives the accused a chance to be able to speak or say things that they may have not had the chance to mention, or present evidence that may or may not have been presented in the previous trial.
Furthermore considering all of the facts stated and the compromise principles outlined for you, we can conclude that the principles of justice in Andrew mallard’s case were heavily compromised. Thursday where are the principles that were upheld or at least somewhat upheld as I mentioned before the cons outweigh the pros and there were still many many occasions where the principles of justice were heavily abused in this case which resulted in the harm of an innocent person that was subject to the corrupt system of law at his time. This case helps us to look back and comparing contrast how the law system functioned and how it was run in mallards time compared to the present day. while some things have changed like extra precautions being made with evidence taking, etc. I feel that there will always be some form of unavoidable corruption all bias in a court case.