TASK 2: whether or not a defendant's criminal record in the past be given to a jury?

Could you have a look at my essay and evaluate it, please? Thank you so much for your kindness.

Under British and Australian laws a jury in a criminal case has no access to information about the defendant’s past criminal record. This protects the person who is being accused of the crime.

Some lawyers have suggested that this practise should be changed and that a jury should be given all the past facts before they reach their decision about the case. Do you agree or disagree?

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Legislation to prohibit the access of a jury into the defendant’s past criminal record, which would result in the miscarriage of justice, is enacted in both Britain and Australia. However, this heard the voice of dissent from lawyers who believe the jury panel must be given the record of crimes the defendant committed before they reach a verdict on the case. In my opinion, protecting this kind of data against the jury’s touch inevitably results in unsatisfied judgements, therefore, I wholly concur with the attorneys.

Firstly, it is of the essence that one’s criminal record serves as legal evidence warning them against recidivism. For this reason, it should be brought out to the jury in case they are prosecuted again. The criminal record of a person will gradually lose its power of holding people back from committing crimes, or perhaps the same crime again unless it is exposed to the jury when they are looking into the case. This kind of data is too special and vital to be kept under wrapped in any situations related to adjudication.

Secondly, if the record of crimes of the defendant will be cloaked in every trial, guilty ones are now able to get away with repeating offend which can sentence them heavily. Moreover, the file of violations holds too little impact on innocent defendants in the case they are being sued to ban the touch from a jury in order to provide fair judgement with no information omitted in the trial.

To sum up everything that has been stated so far, the criminal record of any defendant must be handed to the jury panel to make every verdict reached an undisputed decision. Besides, this strengthens the effect of the criminal record on correcting people’s behaviours due to the threat of exacerbating one’s sentence when it is to be known by a jury.

Thank you.