Mr Mallard Case Study

In addition to this the judge presiding over the case could not establish the movements of Mr Mallard on the day of the murder. Thus it has been stated by His Honour Michael Kirby that Mr Mallard’s movements on the day of the murder was impossible for him to be able to commit the murder of Mrs Laurence, in terms of the times that Mr Mallard was allegedly sighted. This clearly indicates that the judge and jury that presided over the Mallard case placed too much emphasis on the forensic evidence presented before them in determining the guilt of Mr Mallard, such as the chemical analysis Mr Mallards clothing and the splattering experiment, that they overlooked the timeline in which the murder took place with the movements of Mr Mallard. As stated …show more content…
Thus the down fall of forensic science in Jama, was that the police and the authorises investigating into this case failed to recognise the fact that the DNA evidence found on the victim was subjected to a high probability of contamination. Hence when this evidence was presented to the jury in court, they too were blindsided about the potential flaws of the DNA evidence. This is because juries believe that DNA is objective ‘truth’ to the incident and not subject of human influence thus they have the preconceived notion that ‘DNA does not lie’ and hence accept DNA evidence at face value (Wise 2010). Thus in the Jama case during the trial, the prosecution told the jury to not be concerned about the lack of other evidence in the case. This was due to the fact that prosecution claimed, the DNA evidence found was irrefutable and directly linked Mr Jama to drugging and rape of the victim beyond reasonable doubt (Rout). As a result of this Mr Jama was convicted and charged with the crime. However it was not until the defence team for Mr Jama demanded that Victorian Court of Appeal closely scrutinized the validity of the …show more content…
This is particularly important when the guilt or innocence of the accused depends on this evidence. In the same vein lawyers are to be trained in the use and misuse of DNA, so they can decipher whether the DNA evidence is circumstantial or directly related to the crime. Thus in the Australian judicial system, similar measures have now been put in place by the various courts of appeal to avoid mistakes in convicting the innocence or guilt of an individual during a trial (Vincent). However more still needs to be done to avoid these miscarriages of justice from occurring in the