There is no concession that can be made, there is no alternative way to get evidence as there is to get mitochondrial DNA.
You keep ignoring though that her prints being on the casings would not be able to establish she loaded them into the weapon at most such would establish she touched some while on the phone. Actually loading them would have left evidence on her person and such evidences were missing. There was evidence that Jeremy attempted to plan her prints as well and it can be argued he did such.
Finding her prints on the casings would not render it possible for her to have killed herself which is what the defense needs to establish to get the conviction vacated. This is little more than a red herring in the eyes of the law. Only a few arguments would be legally significant in terms of warranting vacating the conviction: 1) undermining the evidence that proves Sheila didn't kill herself; 2) Julie changing her testimony. Nothing else anyone argues holds any legal significance at all.
The judge told the jury that they could convict if they believed Julie or if they believed the evidence that proves Sheila could not have killed herself. Undermining at least one of these is the only way to get the conviction vacated. Anything that fails to address 1 of these 2 things is simply a red herring that holds no legal significance.
I assume there's some sort of national hol today in US as I've been checking the DOW and other US indices and they're closed!?
No I disgaree. I've previously posted the CCRC and CoA criteria for fresh submissions and a referral to CoA:
CCRC:What is “new evidence or legal argument”?
If we are going to be able to refer your case for an appeal we will
usually need to find some importan
t new evidence or legal argument.
Usually this means something that was
not covered at your trial or your
appeal.For example it may be new
evidence not known about at the
time, or something that has chan
ged since your trial, like the
appearance of a new witness or a new development in science. We
can’t usually look again at things that were known about by the jury,
the judge or the magistrates, even
if you believe that they made the
wrong decision in your case. We need to identify something new that
wasn’t raised back then, and that
the judges at your appeal didn’t
know either, that makes your case
look significantly different now.
In some cases it might be a new
legal argument, rather than new
evidence, that means we can refer a case. New legal argument is
usually some significant new point of law that has not been made
before, such as a complaint that the judge’s summing-up was faulty, or
that the prosecution app
lied the law incorrectly.http://ccrc.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ccrc-q-and-a.pdfCourt of AppealHearing new evidence
The Court of Appeal may hear new evidence that was not adduced in the original proceedings (section 23(1)(c) Criminal Appeal Act 1968), if:
it appears capable of belief;
it may afford any ground for allowing the appeal;
it would have been admissible;
it is an issue which is the subject of the appeal;
there is a reasonable explanation for the failure to adduce it.
The court can call persons who were not called at trial but may be able to give relevant evidence to the Court of Appeal such as jurors or lawyers.
The court has power to compel the production of documents and the attendance of witnesses. These powers extend to hearings of applications for leave to appeal as well as the appeal itself, (section 23 Criminal Appeal Act 1968, as amended by section 47 and schedule 8 paragraph 10 Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008).http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/a_to_c/appeals_to_the_court_of_appeal/#a02I maintain that if SC's fingerprints were found on the casings it would throw new light on the case and be treated as "fresh evidence". It could be argued that SC might have fiddled with one cartridge whislt talking with Aunty Pam but I think the prosecution would struggle with circa 15 or more! Especially when control groups exist ie all the other cartridges seized as exhibits that were unlikely to contain SC's fingerprints if SC was responsible. It's not known where the cartridges used came from eg kitchen worktop, gun cupboard or elsewhere. Or even who had previously handled the cartridges that had been reloaded.
The CoA will not second guess what weight the jury attributed to the various aspects of the case and in this context the judge's summing up is irrelevant. This can be evidenced by the appeal court judges comments at JB's 2002 CoA hearing:
513. It should be understood that it is not the function of this court to decide whether or not the jury was right in reaching its verdicts. That is a task that is wholly impossible in virtually every case because this court does not have the advantage of hearing and seeing the witnesses give evidence, and deciding which of the witnesses are trying to tell the truth and which of those who are trying to do so are accurate in their recollection. Our system trusts the judgment of a group of 12 ordinary people to make such assessments and it is not for the Court of Appeal to try to interfere with their assessment unless the verdicts are manifestly wrong, or something has gone wrong in the process leading up to or at trial so as to deprive the jury of a fair opportunity to make their assessment of the case, or unless fresh evidence has emerged that the jury never had an opportunity to consider. We have found no evidence of anything that occurred which might unfairly have affected the fairness of the trial. We do not believe that the fresh evidence that has been placed before us would have had any significant impact upon the jury's conclusions if it had been available at trial. Finally the jury's verdicts were, in our judgment, ones that they were plainly entitled to reach on the evidence. We should perhaps add in fairness to the jury that the deeper we have delved into the available evidence the more likely it has seemed to us that the jury were right, but our views do not matter in this regard, it is the views of the jury that are paramount. Had the casings existed and had the CETRA device produced SC's fingerprints then for sure this would be considered "fresh evidence" meeting the CCRC and CoA criteria and in all probability JB's conviction would be overturned. The appeal court judges would not think 'but hey hang on what about the silencer evidence &%+((£ and what about Julie Mugford's testimony &%+((£ That's not how it works. The appeal court judges have to put themselves in the shoes of jurors and consider if the "fresh evidence" would have altered their verdicts.
