''Connelly v DPP''

964 Year 964 ( CMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events Byzantine Empire * Arab–Byzantine War: Emperor Nikephoros II continues the reconquest of south-eastern Anatoli ...

AC 1254 was a landmark

appeal In law, an appeal is the process in which cases are reviewed by a higher authority, where parties request a formal change to an official decision. Appeals function both as a process for error correction as well as a process of clarifying and ...

whereby the

highest court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...

set out the way in which peripheral

double jeopardy In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence (primarily in common law jurisdictions) that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare case ...

trials can take place in British law.Pillai, p. 178-180. It was ruled such proceedings should only be stayed where a retrial would be an abuse of process that violated objective standards of fairness and hampered the rights of the defendant.Epp, p. 135-136. Connelly had been tried for

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

, while in the commission of a

robbery Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or by use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the perso ...

, and was found guilty despite a defence revolving around a lack of intent for murder. Connelly then appealed to the Court of Appeal, where his conviction was overturned and he was acquitted of murder for lack of proveable intent to kill or cause serious injury at the moment or leading up to the killing and the indictment reduced to robbery. Connelly pleaded ''autrefois acquit'', or ''double jeopardy'', but the argument was rejected and he was able to be convicted of robbery. It is ruled that offences of murder and robbery differ enough in fact and in law" that charges for both offences must together fall or stand. The moral sphere in which law founded demands in that the public interest (and where a custodial or electronic tagging sentence is imposed, a period of enhanced protection of the public) that robbers do not go without a sentence by way of justice.

Notes

References

* * {{cite book, last=Epp, first=Charles R. , title=The Rights Revolution, url=https://archive.org/details/rightsrevolution0065eppc, url-access=registration, publisher=University of Chicago Press, year=1998, edition=2nd English criminal case law House of Lords cases 1964 in British law 1964 in case law