Due Process

The ongoing search for April Jones' is currently providing various elements of the media with an opportunity to jeopardize the due process of law and make a trial impossible, and opportunity that they seem to want to grasp with both hands.
Sky news' Kay Burley, while not risking due process has decided to go for a sensational story by interviewing a person under arrests son, who doesn't know his father, setting a new low that even Sky's sibling Fox will have difficultly descending too.
Then there is the normal bunch of string them up idiots who will quite happily see a man hanged before he has even been charged, never mind put before a court. In most cases without taking the into account what happens if it their son or daughter accused and lynched, then found guilty? Where would they stand then? Well some it seems are happy to volunteer that if they come under suspicion then the thumbscrews are OK by them, I hope the various police forces have seen this and see it as consent.

It is not an unreasonable to ask, "If by compromising Due Process in such a way that made the trial impossible but did not have any effect on the accused, but would save a life should it be done?" Is the right to life of an individual above the rights of society to justice? It is a very hard decision to make and not one I would like to have to take. It is not just that the guilty would go free but that in the future all someone would have to do was arrange for a repeat situation to ensure that they were never prosecuted. It would be an encouragement to those who are only just restrained by the rule of law, that they had a bigger chance of getting away with it. It would risk more lives and injuries than it would save. Due Process must be preserved for the benefit of future victims. Though I hope the question never has to be answered in the real world.

Lynching of Jesse Washington

If any of you think a Lynching is a good idea, this is what one looks like, this even appalled Texans.