Knox and Sollecito murder acquittals challenged

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. The English system has been recently changed to allow it for "new and compelling evidence"

Dobson, Luke Knight and Neil Acourt were brought to trial in 1996 as the result of a misguided private prosecution initiated on behalf of the Lawrence family. The three defendants were acquitted on the judge's direction because of insufficient evidence.
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How, then, was it possible to bring Dobson to trial? In a far-sighted recommendation, the Macpherson inquiry recommended in 1999 that the double jeopardy principle deserved "debate and reconsideration", perhaps by the law commission. If the law was changed, Macpherson predicted, fresh trials after acquittal would be exceptional and appropriate safeguards would be essential. But pointing out that Dobson, Knight and Neil Acourt could not be tried again as the law then stood, however strong any new evidence might be, the Macpherson inquiry suggested that "perhaps in modern conditions such absolute protection may sometimes lead to injustice".

The government's law reform advisers did indeed recommend reform of the double jeopardy rule in 2001 and the law was changed in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. That legislation says the court of appeal must order a re-trial if there is new and compelling evidence and it is in the interests of justice for an order to be made.

The new law was brought into force in 2005 and used successfully the following year in a case where an acquitted murderer had subsequently confessed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/jan/03/double-jeopardy-change-law-retrial