Courtroom Cages Remain Common

by Lucy

Dmitrichenko, the star dancer charged with arranging an acid attack, is innocent until proven guilty. When Mr. Dmitrichenko was in court,he was locked in an iron cage and was guarded by security officers and sometimes, by a nasty-looking dog.

 In Cairo,a similar event happened this month. The Egyptian president, Mohamed Morsi, was corralled with other defendants in a metal cage. It was his first public appearance in four months. Mr. Morsi was defiant, refusing to wear the prison-issued white track suit. He demanded a microphone to speak from the pen and denounced the trial as illegitimate.

The way defendants are portrayed in court can influence judges, juries and global public options. Clever defendants like Mr. Morsi can also influence perception by turning the cage to their advantage.And he may use it to heighten the sense of an overly aggressive, politically motivated prosecution.

 A law professor at the London School of Economics says “As soon as you put somebody in a cage, you begin to make the process part of the punishment.” The European Court of Human Rights has issued several rulings criticizing the use of locked docks as degrading or inhumane. But the rulings did not bar docks entirely as a rights violation. Although there has been little research on the potential influence of locked docks on the verdicts reached by judges or juries, experts argue that defendants are clearly put at a disadvantage.

Reference:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/19/world/europe/courtroom-cages-remain-common-despite-criticism.html?ref=world&_r=0