In the end it doesnt really matter why suicide bombers do it or why America does things. What matters is if we are going to be attacked in our own country by enemies from within then we should make sure we keep groups who contain such enemies out

Logical,

Returning to the original topic.

As a committed civil libertarian, what do you think of the concept of double jeopardy?

If Jack Thomas has been tried for a crime, and his conviction has been overturned on appeal because the evidence against him was tainted by a confession obtained under torture (i.e. his rights have been violated), doesn’t he now have a right to expect that he not be tried again? Think about this in terms of any normal person, rather than Jihad Jack who has already been found guilty by the court of public opinion – the media.

I would imagine, and I’m not 100% sure on this, that the principle of double jeopardy exists in law to protect people from being hounded for the rest of their lives for something a court of law has already found them not guilty of. It is designed to prevent a witch-hunt by the state, basically, and to ensure that the state does everything it can to make its case the first time because there is no second chance. From an individual’s perspective, the right not to be tried again would be considered a basic civil liberty.

The burden of proof is on the prosecution and they are supposed to obtain their evidence by only “fair” means, again to prevent an overly enthusiastic state from fabricating evidence against someone. In this instance, they did not use fair means. They knew of his torture, participated in it, denied him access to a lawyer before questioning, and then used the evidence they gained from it against him. They knew the rules by which they must abide, and disregarded them – they violated Jack Thomas’s rights. They were the ones who tainted their own case, and their tainted evidence was thrown out with the conviction based on it.

...cont...

Why, after having his rights violated by the State, does that same State have the right to try him again for the same crime?

Again, think about this as a principle of law. Remember, Jack Thomas is an innocent man because he has not been proven guilty of anything. He has had his day in court, with the biggest ammunition of the state thrown at him, and he is still not guilty.

One day it might not be Jack Thomas on trail, it might be you.

The concept of double jeopardy is an important one and I agree it is an important protection against the State waging a vendetta against an accused. However I am not convinced that the principle has been infringed in the Thomas case. I am not a lawyer and can only say what I perceive to be fair for both the accused and the community in this instance.
Hopefully some well trained lawyers will join this discussion to tell us what they believe the correct interpretation of the law on double jeopardy is in this case. They may seperately express an opinion about whether the current law on double jeopardy is in their opinion fair to Mr thomas and/or the community.
I feel sure that Mr Thomas' lawyers will pursue the double jeopardy angle if indeed it applies to his current circumstance. I would however be surprised if the Court of Appeal had failed to consider the question of double jeopardy when ruling that the DPP would be entitled to again put the entire issue before a fresh jury.
My understanding is that the Four Corners interview was freely entered into prior to the Court of Appeal deciding to overturn Thomas's conviction (by a jury) on the basis that certain evidence, deemed admissable by the trial judge, was inadmissable.
The new evidence therefore came to hand before the matter was definitively decided. If a definitive decision has not been reached then it is hard to call the consideration of fresh evidence double jeopardy. The matter remains open to determination and new information may be deemed admissable. Had Thomas' lawyers stopped him from making potentially self-incriminating statements until a later date he may have been protected by double jeopardy provisions.

The late arrival of germane information, before a matter is definitively determined, may well justify a trial adjournment to allow a defendant or prosecutor time to prepare their side. Remember that late information can help to exonerate, it does not necessarily help to convict.In this particular case the late evidence could not be considered by the original jury because it had already deliberated and convicted on unsound grounds. It does not strike me as being a vendetta for a fresh jury to be allowed to consider what Mr Thomas put into the public domain before he was convicted or exonerated.
I believe there are moves to re-write some of the laws about double jeopardy to take account of new technologies that would have assured a conviction had they been available at the time of the original trial.
The circumstances for such re-trying of a case would need to be most unusual and involve extreme offences. To deny that it may be approprite to do so in certain cases strikes me as unwise. You may feel that you can never put enough safeguards in place to avoid the State victimising an innocent party. I think it is possible and I am happy that our long tradition of giving the defendant the benefit of the doubt will continue to be our guiding principle.

Logical,

But the additional evidence didn’t come to the hand of the prosecution.

They prosecuted the matter on the evidence they had to hand, probably under extreme political pressure, and the evidence was not good enough. They were gung ho enough to prosecute the matter on insufficient evidence, possibly believing that the frenzy that had been whipped up surrounding the case would be enough to convict him. As it was, I think on two of the original charges he was found not guilty, and on the rest he was found guilty on the basis of admissions made under torture.

Had they not tortured him, they may never have gotten the admission, or they may have. If they hadn’t tortured him they may never have had enough evidence to go to trial. They tortured him – they got themselves in this position.

If indeed he was ever “guilty” of what they accuse him of, they buggered it up. They can’t go back now and say - give us another go, we’ll get it right this time, trust us – and by the way, sorry we tortured you last time. Or they ought not to be able to.

And, while I understand what you are saying about additional evidence exonerating someone, it is a little different allowing a prosecution to bring extra evidence after they have made their case which the jury does not get to decide on. The whole idea of a jury is to be judged by your peers on the evidence available. An appeal judge making a decision, essentially to convict someone, on a piece of evidence not seen by the jury (because they have decided that all other evidence is inadmissible and the jury conviction is unsound) amounts to a judicial decision (i.e. state decision) rather than a jury decision. We might as well be in Indonesia where they can arbitrarily increase a sentence on appeal.

And by the way, are they going to prosecute the people who tortured him, or allowed him to be tortured? I seriously doubt it.