Silk: The Road to Q.C.

One of the hit legal drama that is the always at the tip of everyone's tongue today is Suits. It is an American legal drama about a successful and famous lawyer that hires an associate that does not have the qualifications to be a lawyer. Yet, the whole show revolves around how the duo solve issues and close cases, drawing from Harvey's experience and wisdom and Mike's intelligence and mind.
From a personal point of view, placing this American TV series with others like Criminal Minds and White Collar, I somehow find myself favoring the latter rather than the former. Don't get me wrong. Suits is really an entertaining show. I do like watching how they get out of sticky situations amidst the chaos and turmoil all around them. But all good things must come to an end. I just finished watching the final episode of Season 3 two days back. I now have to wait for Season 4. Then suddenly a thought came to me. Most of our shows are American. Britain do have excellent TV shows like Sherlock. Since I am now even more in the the legal line, I thought, why not try to find British legal drama. My search turned out fruitful. I found a rather interesting legal drama - Silk.

Silk is the story about the life of barristers from a chambers in London, namely the two barristers Martha Costello and Clive Reader. They both have the ambition to be appointed as a Queen's Counsel, known as "taking silk", of which the title of the series is drawn from. It might not be as drama as the American series as Silk is filled with a lot more dialogue and a lot less light-hearted moments, it does give you a small insight into the life of a barrister. I have only watched 2 episodes of Season 1 thus far and therefore might be a little premature to make conclusions about this episodes. But this post is not a review of the series. While watching the first 2 episodes, questions were raised in my head, especially from Episode 1.

In both these episodes, Martha is seen to be the defence counsel. In episode 1, Martha banked on the fact that there was a mishandling of evidence and crime scene as well as the police influencing the witness in identifying the alleged perpetrator.

There are a few rules that can never be compromised in matters of criminal prosecution. Firstly, the presumption of innocence. In the series, we see Martha often quoting the words of Sir William Garrow, "innocent until proven guilty." The second important rule is that doctrine of 'reasonable doubt'.
In evaluating my question, we have to bear in mind both these rules. Assuming that perpetrator A has always been able to escape conviction due to the lack of evidence. We know that perpetrator A is guilty, but due to the lack of evidence, he could not be charged. One day, A committed the crime again. The police processed the scene and witness until there was no room to doubt: the evidence pointed towards A as the criminal. A is then brought to court. You are called to be the defence counsel. In the course of the trial, you somehow knew that A really did commit the crime and that this is the strongest case you ever have against A. The only problem is that you realized that the evidence strongly points to A only because there was intentional mishandling of the evidence and crime scene, and that the police also influenced the witness to point A out as the perpetrator. You know that you as a barrister are the advocate of justice. The dilemma here is this: if you raise the issue of police mishandling evidence and crime scene and that they influenced the key witness to the case, your client will be acquitted as doubt will be cast upon the prosecution's case. The credibility of the police will also be brought to scrutiny and there will be a national distrust in the police force. You also do not know whether A will commit another crime again and whether he will ever be punished for his wrongdoings. Is it fair that his victims have to suffer while he goes scot-free? But if you do not raise this issue, you are likely to lose the case, not to mention not representing your client well, and also you know that the system of justice is compromised and you are letting the matter slip by. How sure are you that this will not happen again?

If you were the defence counsel, what will you do? And why?