Article Critique

Everyone has their own due process rights. Due process means procedural fairness and requires that criminal case proceedings be conducted with fairness and equality. No matter what charge is against them, no matter how violent, no matter how gruesome, no matter how horrible people may think they are, EVERYONE has their rights.

Many have said that they believe that during criminal trails the person on trial often has more rights than the person the crime is committed against. This is definitely the case when it comes to the trial against Levi Bellfield in the murder of Milly Dowler back in March 2002. Bellfield was found guilty of murder and given a life sentence. He was told he would "never be released" from jail after his conviction, but this was not the first time he has heard these words. Three years ago he was convicted of the murders of Amelie Delagrange, 22, Marsha McDonnell, 19, and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, then 18.

Milly Dowler's family said that they had felt they had been put on trial more than Bellfield. They said that they don't believe any real justice has been done. They believe that punishment should be "an eye for an eye" and that now after all hes done Bellfield will just spend the rest of his life living off from the taxpayer's money. Milly's father Bob said his family had to pay to high of a price for Bellfield's conviction, saying that the trial had been a mentally scarring process and the justice system was loaded unfairly in favour of the criminal. While on the stand Milly's mother Sally's questioning was quite cruel and inhuman, resulting in her collapsing after leaving the stand. While Milly's father was put on the stand and questioned about his interest in bondage sex and the fact that Milly found a pornographic magazine in her father's room. The defense argued that Milly was an unhappy teenage, perhaps that she ran away from home because of her unhappiness. The family said the way Milly was portrayed was no way a representation of her life. This family has been put on trial while trying to obtain justice for their daughter; private details of their personal lives brought about just so people can inspect them and comment them.

I do understand the concept of the due process model. If I was on trial I would want my rights in trail but I don't not think that in cases like this it is ok to have to put the family as just as much if not more pain than then crime itself has caused. In no way do I think it is fair that every aspect of the Dowler's life was put on the stand and made public for the world to question or judge them. Bellfield is a serial criminal with an obvious hatred for women. He has been convicted of killing three, attempting to killing another and is now being linked to the hammer murders of Lin and Megan Russel. His own wife testified that Bellfield would come home and tell her of the rapes he committed,