Appeals

His Appeals.

In March 2006, Mitchell was granted leave to appeal against his conviction (and his length of sentence) at the High Court of Justiciary sitting as the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh, on the grounds that the trial judge should have moved the trial outside the city. The Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh heard Mitchell’s appeal in February 2008, and in May 2008 his original conviction was upheld by Lord Osborne, Lord Kingarth and Lord Hamilton. They ruled that there was sufficient evidence in law that Mitchell could be convicted on and rejected his other grounds of appeal, although they stated that the way police had questioned Mitchell on 14 August 2003 had been “outrageous” and was “to be deplored.”

On 2 February 2011, Mitchell’s appeal against sentence was refused by a two to one majority.[34] Lord Justice Clerk, Lord Gill, sitting with Lord Hardie and Lady Cosgrove, stated that he had the utmost sympathy for the family of the victim and that he understood entirely why this murder should have caused such public revulsion. Nevertheless, he was of the opinion that the sentencing judge should not have imposed a punishment part of the sentence of such severity on such a young offender. He stated that justice would be done in this case if the punishment part were fixed at 15 years. He did not consider that they were precluded from that disposal by anything said in the guidance given in HM Adv v Boyle and Ors (supra). He regretted, therefore, that he had to differ from his Lordship and her Ladyship.