Andrew Adams (wrongly jailed)
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Andrew Adams was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1993 for the murder of teacher Jack Royal in Newcastle upon Tyne, England on 19 March 1990. His case was later referred back to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which lead to his acquittal on 11 January 2007.[1]
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[edit] Legal precedent
This case made history as the first time an appeal was launched on the ground the jury was proven to be biased and unfair, after it was shown that several jury members had made disparaging comments about the defendant before the end of the trial. For the first time, jury members gave evidence at the appeal.
The appeal was allowed not because of the jurors' evidence, but on the grounds that the defence team was ill-prepared and failed to include evidence that could have proven Mr. Adams's innocence at the time of the original trial. This is probably a more important outcome of the appeal, as many of those who claim to have been convicted of crimes they did not commit allege that their defence teams did not prepare or present their cases adequately. Previously the Court of Appeal had been unwilling to accept the argument that defence lawyers' incompetence or poor work was a reason why evidence supporting the defence case had not been used at the original trial.
