Criminal Justice System Case Study

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The criminal justice process initially did an insufficient job at balancing the right of the accused. The accused young person Choi Kia Tang had a legal right to have a support person with him at the time of providing his statement which did not occur. The criminal justice process is to consider the accused by law as being innocent until proven guilty. It would appear that guilt was quickly placed upon Tang due to the other three young people declaring they were innocent. Tang appears to be charged of the murder without any real supporting evidence. Tang was charged with the murder despite Tang denying the murder, the three young people providing contradictory evidence however, all denying seeing Tang with a knife at the scene and no murder weapon being found. The criminal justice process also maintains that a person’s guilt must be proven beyond all reasonable doubt. It could be …show more content…
In July 2004 Tang was acquitted by a jury reducing his sentence resulting in him walking free after an appeal that allowed the jury to hear evidence provided by a new witness.
As a result of the criminal justice system concluding that Tang was not guilty for this murder the verdict prevented closure or justice for the family and for the community. As there was no other person prosecuted for the murder the family and the community would have felt that no justice had been served for the murder of David Laxale. The criminal justice process must seek a balance of justice for all parties involved and when it is not successful in this endeavour law reform should be considered.
The right of the accused is that he is to be considered innocent until proven guilty and the offence must be proven beyond all reasonable doubt.
Tang was allowed to have multiple appeals to continue to challenge the allegation in an attempt to prove his innocence which was his right to do