[joeysteele]

Originally Posted by Nedusa

What angers me most is the fact that previous convictions are not allowed to be disclosed until the trial is completed and so many times people are acquitted because the evidence is too circumstantial and/or the barrister has found legal loophole. Only to find out that this self same person has a string of previous convictions for the same crime as long as your arm.

The look on some of the jurors faces is priceless as they let the clearly guilty piece of crap back out onto the streets to carry on re offending .

I say previous convictions for the same offence should be disclosed to the jury as it is relevant to the defendants current case.

This has been a contentious issue for a good while and in some trials this can happen.
I can take on board much of what you say above in your post.

However, there are 2 ways to look at it.
Once you reveal previous convictions,even possibly a lot smaller than the current crime being tried in court.
The chance of a fair trial is then greatly diminished and the revealing of previous convictions clouds the whole trial.
That could mean someone who had done a lot wrong in the past, then turned their life around but then perhaps were in the wrong place at the wrong time, could be discounted as being able to tell the truth and leave his/her trial a forgone conclusion against them because of previous crimes.

A trial should be about the issue in hand at the time,with enough evidence to win conviction on that alone,otherwise in all truth, fair trials could be near impossible to conduct.