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The Forum > Article Comments > The John Tonge Centre, DNA evidence and miscarriages of justice - Part 5 > Comments

The John Tonge Centre, DNA evidence and miscarriages of justice - Part 5 : Comments

By Bernie Matthews, published 22/3/2005

Bernie Matthews examines the use of DNA evidence in trials and the John Tonge Centre, Queenland's DNA laboratory.

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I think the justice system is flawed in other ways as well. For instance having a jury made up of just 12 people, anyone of whom can go against the rest and cause a miss trial, can make for poor judgements. Instead it should be a much larger jury of 100 people, 75 of whom have to agree on the verdict. This way you won't get maverik "Joh" supporters who manage to spoil justice with their own prejudices.

It is pretty scarey that people generally accept experts and their advice without critical thinking. An electrician said the other day "How do you know he was an electrician?", about a man who had done a dangerous and sloppy job. He then said "Nobody has ever asked me if I was an electrician, they just assumed I was".
Posted by Penekiko, Tuesday, 22 March 2005 4:50:49 PM
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It's a commonly dicussed problem within the media industry that media outlets rely too heavily on expert opinion.

This creates a pattern of reporting and an image whereby average citizens, even witnesses, are regarded with less credibility than so-called experts.

This conditioning of society via the mass media, promotes a 'them and us' type of stigma which allows these poor levels of accountability within the public sector, creating people who are blindly followed and beyond questioning.

I feel it is quite a frightening prospect that with these stark inaccuracies and unreliable levels of ethics and accountability within the public sector, that justice workers can demand systematic screening of inmates' dna and apply them to old unsolved crimes without reasonable independent scrutiny.
Posted by Magnet, Saturday, 2 April 2005 1:53:11 AM
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