Germany/Portugal - Christian Brueckner, 27 @ time of 1st crime (2004), charged with sexual assault crimes, Praia de Rocha, Portugal. #4

[RichardKimble]

So if the prosecution are successful in removing the judges because of of bias, what's to prevent the defence in doing the same halfway through another trial, sauce for the goose.

 

[Mex]

The argument goes that the judges haven't seen all the evidence, wasn't this presented pre trial?

It would have been.
But apparently the judge presiding over that stage of the proceedings is not necessarily the trial judge who may only be seeing it at the trial stage.

Snip
Presumption of Innocence: procedural rights in criminal proceedings
Social Fieldwork Research (FRANET)

Taken from page 40
First of all, they criticised the fact that pursuant to the law, the judge who reviewed the indictment during the intermediate proceedings and decided whether a conviction in the main trial would be likely, was the same judge who would be in charge of the main trial later on.
...
In their view, however, this would not be in accordance with the law, as the code of criminal procedure prescribed that an accused person could only be sentenced on the basis of the main trial.
The interviewees added that there were empirical studies on this issue. According to them, these showed through experiments that judges who did not know the file acquitted a significant amount more people in the main trial than judges who had knowledge of the file

https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/files/fra_uploads/germany-2021-country-research-presumption-innocence_en.pdf

It seems that there is a possibility that the presiding judge in a German trial may not have the in-depth familiarity with the evidence that the judge who dealt with the initial stages of the proceedings where supporting evidence supported charges being laid.

 

[Monic]

Personally, it does indeed seem like there isn't enough evidence. Even though we know better...
But now they may be forced to charge him in the Maddie case.
They've spent years procrastinating and looking for evidence, trying to gain even more time, and as long as CB is in custody, well, you're not in such a hurry.
It's time for the evidence in the Maddie case to come to light

 

[Davieson]

Personally, it does indeed seem like there isn't enough evidence. Even though we know better...
But now they may be forced to charge him in the Maddie case.
They've spent years procrastinating and looking for evidence, trying to gain even more time, and as long as CB is in custody, well, you're not in such a hurry.
It's time for the evidence in the Maddie case to come to light

Actually I don't accept that argument. If there is insufficient evidence to charge, the case should be reclassified as a cold case and investigators move on the other cases, of which there will be more than enough to keep them in employment.

 

[Dave55]

Actually I don't accept that argument. If there is insufficient evidence to charge, the case should be reclassified as a cold case and investigators move on the other cases, of which there will be more than enough to keep them in employment.

Wolters has said they have enough to charge bit want to charge with the best possible evidence.
His hand may be forced unless the present trial is stopped

 

[Davieson]

Wolters has said they have enough to charge bit want to charge with the best possible evidence.
His hand may be forced unless the present trial is stopped

That was said several years ago and he has never followed through.
Its time he did so, or give up on his attempt to implicate CB.
IMO

 

[RichardKimble]

Wolters has said they have enough to charge bit want to charge with the best possible evidence.
His hand may be forced unless the present trial is stopped

Well the current trial if its a bellweather for the MM case is lacking imo.

 

[RichardKimble]

Personally, it does indeed seem like there isn't enough evidence. Even though we know better...
But now they may be forced to charge him in the Maddie case.
They've spent years procrastinating and looking for evidence, trying to gain even more time, and as long as CB is in custody, well, you're not in such a hurry.
It's time for the evidence in the Maddie case to come to light

Bit presumptious if I might say, we're not in court listening to that which is presented.