To say people who commit heinous crimes should automatically forfeit their right to appeal?

[DaringPinkBear]

Why waste resources on people who’ve clearly committed egregious acts?

Yes, s/he is talking shit. Makes no sense and hasn't got the wherewithall to concede that many people get convicted wrongfully.

That’s the name that popped into my head. A heinous crime and Sally and 2 other innocent women were convicted on expert evidence

Which evidence turned out to be completely and fatally flawed.

OP. You could not be more wrong if you tried

This, so much this.

Stupid. Sorry. Have you not heard of folks who were hung although innocent? Or served huge sentences only to be revealed as innocent?

One of the things underpinning our legal system for the last 300 years or so has been the idea that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer. What you seem to be proposing is a change that will criminalise more innocent people.

And as PP has highlighted, we’ve had some pretty unforgivable miscarriages of justice with the bar set where it currently is. So, how do you define ‘overwhelming evidence’ differently to reduce appeals (which as posted are already small) without imprisoning more innocent people? I think you are being dangerously unreasonable.

In a case close to me, the perpetrator was given grounds to appeal based on the fact that there was an error in the trial. Basically, something that wasn't quite fair to them. It felt awful that they could go free based on this fact and we were warned that they had a strong case for it being unfair, so them going free was a real possibility.

Thankfully, the judge did see it was unfair but felt that didn't warrant any change in sentencing. Something that we weren't even told was another possible outcome! We thought if they "won", they'd go free or have a greatly reduced sentence. If they "lost", nothing would change.

It gave me faith in the justice system. The unfairness shouldn't occur, it could mean someone isn't sentenced appropriately or is totally innocent. But it shouldn't mean someone obviously guilty should go free either.