There are a number of principles called the principles of justice, which are designed to give everyone a fair chance in court. These principles are important because everyone is equal and deserves a fair go, no matter if they have more or less power than someone else. One example of this is high-quality evidence. This means that the evidence obtained has to be gathered correctly, and it has to be reliable. Another example of a principle of justice is the presumption of innocence. This means that we would presume the defendant as innocent at the start of the trial until they are proven guilty. Through an investigation of the Scott Austic case, it was demonstrated that some principles were upheld, while others were not.
Stacey Thorne, a 34 year old woman who was 22 weeks pregnant was allegedly stabbed by her boyfriend, Scott Austic, 21 times one night in 2007. Stacey was found bleeding out on a neighbour’s front lawn after walking 100m, desperately calling for help. The police immediately declared that Scott was the person who had stabbed Stacey, and charged him with murder. According to the police, Scott had allegedly gone back home from Stacey’s house, grabbed a can of Jim Beam, went back to Stacey’s house and then stabbed her. Evidence the police use to prove this fact was a knife that had been found in the paddock between their houses which showed Stacey’s blood being smeared all over it, a Jim Beam can with Scott’s DNA on it found not far from Stacey’s house and a cigarette packet stained with Stacey’s blood found at Scott’s house. Scott was found ‘guilty’ of murdering Stacey Thorne and was sentenced to life in jail. That was until a private investigator, hired by Scott’s mother, found an interesting piece of information that would be crucial to Scott’s release from prison. At first, the private investigator noticed how the cigarette packet found in Scott’s home was only seen in the digital photo, and not the video footage taken a day before. This means that someone had come in, and planted the cigarette there, questioning the integrity that the police had sworn to. It was later revealed that the location that they had found the Jim Bean can and the knife had already been searched through a few days before by 5 professionally trained officers, with some of them being forensic officers. Through all of these evidence being brought to light, Scott Austic pleaded for an appeal, and then was finally found innocent, after a long 13 years.
The principle ‘high-quality evidence’ is when the evidence that has been gathered must be reliable and obtained correctly, and this principle was proven to have been violated and failed to be upheld in the Scott Austic case. This was portrayed when the cigarette package that was discovered in Scott’s residence did not show in the digital photo, but was shown in the video footage. This indicates that someone entered and placed the cigarette there, casting doubt on the police’s commitment to honesty. It was eventually discovered that five professionally trained cops, some of whom were forensic officers, had previously examined the area where they had discovered the Jim Bean can and the knife a few days prior in a deep search, and didn’t see anything. There was no way that they would’ve missed it if it was hidden in apparent ‘plain sight’. Through all this, it is clear that the police on the case had failed to uphold the principle ‘high-quality evidence’ as the police was found to have been guilty to planting the evidence against Scott, the reason behind it unknown. These points discussed above gives a brief summary towards how evidence that was wrongly collected resulted in an unfair verdict for the accused.
The principle ‘equality before the law’ is when all judicial officers takes an oath to administer the law without fear, favour, affection or ill will. This principle was proven to have been violated and failed to be upheld in the Scott Austic case, as the police officers had in fact lied about the all the ‘evidence’ they had supposedly ‘found’ lying in plain sight, when in reality it was them who had planted the evidence there for Scott to be wrongfully jailed with no remorse. This was shown when the private investigator had noticed little bits the police had forgot to cover up about their fake evidence, the fact that they had planted the bloody cigarette packet at Scott’s house after the photo was taken for analyzing and also the bloody knife + Jim Bean can found just lying on the floor in plain sight, especially after the police had already done a clean swipe search of the area. It was then was later found out that they had lied to the court, and broken one of the most important principles of justice – equality before the law. This principle was shown to have been severely breached in Scott Austic’s case, and the disastrous consequences that followed, leading Scott Austic into a life sentence of a crime he did not commit.
Good work!
Keep doing fantastic work!