There’s no presumption of innocence for the wrongly imprisoned

The greatest criminal barrister of all time, Sir Edward Marshall Hall KC, who probably saved more men and women from the gallows than anyone in English history, was famous for his ‘scales of justice’ speech, in which, as described in Sally Smith’s magnificent biography, he would stand for several long minutes with his arms outstretched at shoulder height and say:

‘It may appear that the scales of justice are first weighed on one side in favour of the prisoner and then on the other against the prisoner. As counsel on either side puts the evidence in the scales, I can call to my fancy a great statue of Justice holding the two scales with equally honest hands. As the jury watch the scales they think for a moment that one scale and then the other has fallen and then again that they are so level that they cannot make up their minds which was lower or higher.