The murder of 14 year-old schoolgirl Jodi Jones near Edinburgh on 30 June 2003

[marty]

Right about who it was? You think you figured who really killed Jodi or you just mean right about him being innocent?

Right about innocence.. I have my own theory though

[marty]

Well, would you?

[nugnug]

I've been reading about the trial. is it usual for the judge to basically say there's enough evidence to find him guilty if you believe the evidence?

it is a tad baised.. but it wasnt the first a judge has done that.

[sandra L]

Sorry to go all technical here, but it's perfectly normal for the judge to say "there is a sufficiency of evidence to convict... if the jury believes the "evidence."

Before a case goes to trial, there's a process of "examining" the prosecution evidence "at its highest" - that means, what does the prosecution case say before there have been any arguments against it - that's what decides whether or not there is a sufficiency of evidence to convict.

So for example, the prosecution case "at its highest" here is that (1) We have a witness who saw a youth and  girl at the Easthouses end of the path - we (the prosecution) contend that these people were Jodi and Luke (and therefore can place Luke Mitchell near the murder scene at the time of the murder (2) This proves his alibi is untrue (and his brother's uncertainty about the evening coupled with his use of a mobile phone suppports this contention) and (3) Luke Mitchell had specialist knowledge of the crime because he led searchers to the body.

If all three of those were proven to be true, the judge can conclude that together, they constitute "sufficient evidence." It may be "normal" but is it justice? Or is it just a way to make really flimsy cases look and sound more robust than they are?

For example, did you know the actual legal position is that it's not for jurors to decide which witnesses they understand, they are simly asked to decided which witnesses they believe - that's why the evidnce from the forensics expert is so important - even if the jury did not understand the intricacies of DNA evidence, if they believed this witness, that's all that's needed to convict, even though she was taking utter rubbish in what could be seen as a cynical attempt to get the jury to believe that an unconnected DNA sample was, in fact, important.

[sandra L]

Sorry, just to clarify, the three contentions are what decide, at the beginning, whether there is a case to answer. When the judge tells the jury there is "sufficient evidence to convict" after all of the evidence has been heard, he's referring to these original contentions, and saying, in effect, if you still believe the prosecution case, after hearing the evidence you've heard, you can return a guiilty verdict.

But should a judge be making such a claim after the evidence has been heard? Is it just a way of subtly influencing jurors under the guise of "guidance?"

[sandra L]

Why is it so inconceivable that perhaps the person who stabbed Jodi was indeed the person she had arranged to meet who was also known to carry knives? You and Sandra don't know that it wasn't. Don't post your personal opinion as facts please, you could be campaigning to free a murderer for all you know. I wouldn't risk that unless I had some evidence he was innocent

There was no "missing" knife - the whole missing knife thing was a massive smokescreen used to introduce confusion and suspicion. The knife that was claimed to be missing was handed to Nigel Beaumont (Luke's solicitor) just after the second raid on Luke's house (August 18th 2003, from memory). The knife produced in court said to be "like" the missing knife (that wasn't missing) was, by the pathologist's own admission, too short to have caused the injuries suffered by Jodi.

"Campaigning to free a murderer?" Can we get a little bit real here? My daughters were12 and 13 at the time of Jodi's murder. The eldest went to Newbattle High School, and the youngest was going there that autumn. We lived just 10 minutes walk from Newbattle High. Do you honestly believe a mother in those circumstances, in an area where a 14 year old girl has been so brutally murdered, would campaign to free "the murderer" right back into her own community, putting her own daughters, their friends, and every other young girl in the area at risk?

You may think what you like, but there was a lot of work and soul searching which went into my involvement in this case. I do not believe there was justice for Jodi or her family obtained here - they were lied to, manipulated and misled from the off - that's a pretty disgusting way to treat a grieving family. And you're right, I didn't know the Mitchells or the Joneses prior to June 2003 which, I would suggest, would make my involvement all the more strange, unless, by the time I became involved, I was convinced there was something badly wrong with the whole case, and believed my daughters to be at risk because of that.

[Baz]

Sorry to go all technical here, but it's perfectly normal for the judge to say "there is a sufficiency of evidence to convict... if the jury believes the "evidence."

Don't apologise, that's what I was hoping for.

Interesting to know. It felt so prejudicial when I read it that I was shocked. But I guess if it's the norm then the shock is just my lack of expertise.

Thanks for the information.

[Baz]

For example, did you know the actual legal position is that it's not for jurors to decide which witnesses they understand, they are simly asked to decided which witnesses they believe - that's why the evidnce from the forensics expert is so important - even if the jury did not understand the intricacies of DNA evidence, if they believed this witness, that's all that's needed to convict, even though she was taking utter rubbish in what could be seen as a cynical attempt to get the jury to believe that an unconnected DNA sample was, in fact, important.

Is this Mahasweta Roy? And is this relating to the trousers mentioned in an earlier post that were removed from Luke's room? Did she present this as significant?

[Baz]

Sorry for the multiple posts but whilst I'm here there was something else bothering me.

The Elizabeth Short/Black Dahlia connection that the prosecution seemed to want to make. From what I read the pathologist asked about this said that there were only subtle similarities between the cases and another pathologist said there were no similarities. Is this right?

So, the thing that is bothering me, how is this allowed to be produced as evidence? So Marilyn Manson was obsessed with the murder and you own one of his CDs (bought after the murder if I remember correctly) but the crimes themselves are wildly different. So how is it relevant to the jury? But even without proving the connection/relevance of Short's murder they have surely left the jurors with some impression that it is significant.

Sorry, started to ramble a bit then. What I mean is surely this evidence could influence the jury's impression of Luke/the crime despite technically having no relevance at all (that I can see!)

(I owned the special dvd edition of that Manson album too, I might dig it out!)

[sandra L]

Is this Mahasweta Roy? And is this relating to the trousers mentioned in an earlier post that were removed from Luke's room? Did she present this as significant?

From memory, yes, she was the "professional" who tried to claim that there was DNA from Jodi "connected to" a pair of trousers belonging to Luke - thankfully Findlay pointed out that those trousers, were not connected to the murder, therefore the "link" was non existent.

[Baz]

From memory, yes, she was the "professional" who tried to claim that there was DNA from Jodi "connected to" a pair of trousers belonging to Luke - thankfully Findlay pointed out that those trousers, were not connected to the murder, therefore the "link" was non existent.

That's interesting, thanks. I wonder why she felt the need to bring up the trousers as they were irrelevant to the crime. I can't see that she has anything to gain from trying to include this evidence. Strange.

I've been reading The Scotsman's accounts of the trial, difficult to find many other sources of information with many details, and during her testimony she is shown photos of clothes belonging to Luke that it is assumed he was wearing that night, I think. One of the items shown is a green bomber jacket. So why all this fuss about a parka? Are these actually the clothes he was wearing with his friends and the search party and it is assumed that the hypothetical parka was blood stained, destroyed and changed for a bomber before heading out again?

The Scotsman isn't always clear.

[sandra L]

The pathologist said at trial there were "superficial" similarities. The same pathologist said, in the BBC documentary that the "similarities" were that both murders included "slashing type" wounds - in other words, the "simiarities" could in no way suggest a "link" between the two murders (any more than they could suggest a "link" between other murders which involved slashing type wounds.)

The suggestion was that Luke had carried out a "copy-cat" killing, using the watercoloour paintings of the Dahlia murder by Manson as his "guide." Nimmo Smith even said he thought Luke had "carried those images in his mind."

Big, big problem here. There was no evidence produced to show that Luke had ever seen those images. The home computer was checked, other computers Luke had access to were checked - nothing. No access, anywhere, to the water colour paintings. The cop who had "researched" them admitted that they were "not easy to find" and that you "had to know what you were looking for."

How was this ever accepted as "evidence?" Even the judge, by making the above claim, demonstrated that he, himself, had been influenced by the hype, because there was no evidence produced in his court, during a trial over which he presided, to support his claim. So there you have it - the prosecution only has to make an accusation, no evidence required to back it up, and the judge will accept it as proven - that is one of the reasons this case worries me so much.

[sandra L]

The bomber/parka jacket theory. They never quite specified what they thought had happened - Luke was wearing the bomber in the afternoon at school, and later, when he was taken to the police station after Jodi's body was found.

But here's the bit I find really interesting. On August 14th, following the second raid, they were grilling Luke about what he was wearing the evening of the murder. They claimed to have more than 50 witnesses, all describing Luke "to a T" wearing ... ready ... a German army shirt. Not a parka, not a bomber jacket, but a German Army shirt. The very next day, the first pictures of Luke wearning the parka his mother bought after the murder (the police had the receipt) appeared in the papers on August 15th - the very next day.

Luke was never questioned about a Parka, missing or otherwise, until April 2004, 8 months later, yet police claimed their "suspicions were raised" when they searched his house and found the parka "missing." That had to have been the raid on July 4th (since by August 14th, he had a parka, so there was no "missing" parka.) But by July 4th, there were no statements about Luke and a parka, nor even by August 14th (as evidenced by their line of questioning.) As a matter of fact, the first statements about Luke wearing a parka began to appear ... after he was pictured in the media wearing one.

So, what about all these witnesses saying they'd seen Luke in a german army shirt on the evening of the murder, directly after the time it was claimed Jodi was murdered? Why weren't they all paraded into court to challenge the "parka witnesses?" After all, the claim has been that "all those witnesses" (to the parka" can't have been mistaken, yet it appears we have 50+ witnesses who were all mistaken about the army shirt?

[Baz]

How was this ever accepted as "evidence?" Even the judge, by making the above claim, demonstrated that he, himself, had been influenced by the hype, because there was no evidence produced in his court, during a trial over which he presided, to support his claim. So there you have it - the prosecution only has to make an accusation, no evidence required to back it up, and the judge will accept it as proven - that is one of the reasons this case worries me so much.

This is what I was getting at, but you made more sense!!

The thing that worries me most about this particular line of enquiry is that by it being presented as true, that Luke was obsessed with Manson and the paintings etc, it makes it more understandable in the mind of the public/jury. It adds some sense to how a 14 year old with no evidential motive COULD do this. It's a story you can understand now even though that understanding has no basis in the evidence presented.

How that was allowed to happen seems very odd to me.

[Baz]

Luke was never questioned about a Parka, missing or otherwise, until April 2004, 8 months later, yet police claimed their "suspicions were raised" when they searched his house and found the parka "missing."

It seems to me, and this is speculation so please no one take this is as fact, that in the post conviction analysis of the case police were asked a lot of questions about why they had focused on Luke so early and they couldn't really answer it. The reason I say this is that the reasons given all seem to have proven false e.g the parka (as mentioned above) and the supposed discrepancies between the statement given by Luke and the statements of the search party (which have been shown not to come about till later statements/the trial!)

And this sort of sums it up for me. This is from Dobbie, the detective chief inspector not the house elf:

"I am open to suggestions as to where we could have made improvements in the investigation, but I can’t think of anything obvious."

It's like a wilful decision not to learn from mistakes. How about all the fundamental errors at the crime scene such as a tent to protect from the rain or not moving stuff, Dobbie? What's that, it's "the finest crime scene" you've ever seen?

It doesn't give you much faith in the team that ran this investigation, does it?