Late for Law

Due to commuting to uni, trying to figure out what time is best to leave home is a slight struggle. After leaving an hour and a half early (although the car journey only takes 30 minutes), we still managed to be rushing for time, getting lost like most frantic fresehers. Living up to that title, me and fellow journalism student Sophie got to our Law lecture with minutes to spare; first impressions count you know! After reading chapter 1 of Mcnae's essential law for journalists last night - although knowing i had a fairly high reading level - i found it slightly wordy and hard to take in so much new information due to never previously studying law. However, much to my (and my mothers) relief, i completed the first chapter with a rough understanding of what it entailed. Thankfully, today's lecture cleared many things up for me such as the main differences between civil and criminal law. Simplified, the law is important in a few ways;
1. It is important as a source of news. It is rare to find any newspaper which does not include a crime report.
2. Criminal law such as contempt of court places grave restraint on what journalists an write or broadcast, and furthermore presents a constant danger or imprisonment.

Civil Law
Within the cival law, simplified, the experts sort it out for you. The cival law deals with such issues as disputes between citizens such as divorce and marrige. It also includes actions for libal, where two parties to a dispute want the matter settled with justice or where one person is demanding compensation from another. Civil law is sorted by the County Court, and the CC often deal with big divorce cases and so on.

Image taken from Flickr, Mr. T in DC

Criminal Law
Criminal law can come under a breach of the criminal code, and that is when you know someone has to be trialed by the criminal law. They often deal with offences against society as a whole such as; murder, violence in general and blasphemy. Not only this but also offences against another person such as; fraud, dangerous driving, robbery, rape, violence or threatening behaviour.

As debating within today's lecture, how do you know whether someone is a murderer (or whatever they have been convicted for?) Is Hitler classed as a murderer?

The question asked by Chris Horrie, our journalism lecturer. Consequently, from a personal opinion, i believe he is not due to he did not commit all of these murders by his own hand. One may say he was, as he was the brains and decision maker behind it all, however, he was never convicted. From a journalistic point of view, if you have not been trialed and convicted you can not be classed as that name e.g. murderer.

More often than not the police/prosecution must stick to the standards of proof, where you must either
1. Have a confession
2. Have forensic evidence
3. Have an eye witness
Ultimately, you can not accuse the guilty on just the balance of probability.

A last important point about law for journalists is the meaning of double jeprody. All in all this means that you can not be trialed for the same crime twice if you have already done the time for this crime.
Yeah, a lot to take in right? However, after today's lecture I actually feel i have begun to understand the main points and theories behind law for journalists, and from Mr Chris Horrie, the ways in which to work your way around the law to get 50,000 in your bank from suing top magazines. Maybe I don't need a high paying job after all? All jokes aside, it seems I may have a lot more to learn throughout this sesmester however we will just have to see where that leads when the time comes!