The secret barrister seems to have defined this term but his or her definition is better than mine. Nevertheless I wish to point out a problem that is made by defense teams and it is mainly legal in nature.
I wish to point this out as I’ve observed it a few times recently. Once made it is particularly difficult to escape from. One recent example is that a defendant admitted, through their first instance Barrister, that the person they were accused of killing was actually killed by Insulin poisoning BUT NOT by them. In other words some third party was responsible.
I find this profoundly stupid, The only way you could know this is if you are agreeing with the prosecution theory. In the case of insulin poisoning the only way you could agree with that statement is if you have the technology to do that test in a reliable and independent manner. You don’t have that technology because nobody does, especially not you. Yet by uttering that agreement you have established a fact that it is legally true. Under no circumstance should you agree that something is true that you have no possible way of verifying. The prosecution is responsible making the case against you.
This also occurs in cases where DNA is used as evidence. In cases where the prosecution has obtained DNA evidence against you they will ask you explain what your DNA is doing on a stain recovered from the victim. In fact they will probably make this accusation a few hundred times or so. Sometimes people will agree their DNA is found on a victim but they don’t know how it got there. The state of the art is that nobody can identify your DNA with certainty but that will not stop them from claiming that they do. Recently, in the case of Paul Quinn, Paul did just that. Does Paul have access to a state of the art DNA Lab that could even feasibly make that claim? I doubt that very much.
In another case, this time in St. Cloud Florida. A man was accused of a cold case murder. His interrogation was recorded and published. The Police were so convinced they had their man that they just made bald accusations for about 2 hours. Repeating over and over the accusation that his DNA was found on the victim’s shorts. It remains a terrible crime but there is simply no point in prosecuting an innocent man. As this case received a lot of publicity I’m happy to name the man, this is Gene Stuller. The woman was named but I will follow English practice of keeping the victim’s anonymity.
Gene was identified using so called Genetic Genealogy. This technique has achieved remarkable success in recent years but you should remember that if you hear about it through articles in the press they are likely to be hyped to achieve maximum press coverage. When talking to those involved they usually claim genetic DNA gives them a tip. Then police follow the tip to extract normal DNA. The big question is just how accurate is forensic DNA?