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3 U.N.S.W.L.J. 215 (1979-1980)
Beyond Reasonable Doubt

handle is hein.journals/swales3 and id is 227 raw text is: BOOK REVlEWS Beyond Reasonable Doubt, G. HAWKINS, B.A. (Wales) (Criminol.); Associate Professor of Criminology, Institute of Criminology, University of Sydney. (Australian Broadcasting Commission, Sydney, 1977), pp. 5-132. Cloth recommended retail price $6.95 (ISBN: 0 642 97204 4); Paperback recommended retail price $2.50 (ISBN: 0 642 97466 7). The public analysis of a notable criminal trial is a well tried formula for arousing interest in any theory remotely connected with the subject which the analyst wishes to propound. If Professor Gordon Hawkins' book falls into this category then there is some difficulty in determining the theory for which the book is an intended vehicle and a temptation to treat it as no more than commercial sensationalism unsuitable (if not unworthy) of review in this publication. Such treatment may not be too unfair in light of the influence of television script writers on the finished product. This influence would be obvious even without the author's acknowledgement of his indebtedness to their work. Nevertheless, even if the book were no more than an attempt using the sensational to make the layman alive to and critical of the efficiency of the criminal justice system, then it warrants consideration by lawyers, if for no other reason than to discover whether the methodology for involving laymen in this sort of critical analysis might usefully be applied elsewhere. The single advantage of this 132 page work is the brevity of the manuscript, something which might be construed as so vexing to the publisher as to require the use of such expansionary devices as excep- tionally large typeface, huge chapter headings and commencement of the text at page 5. Less critical observers would say these features make the contents of the book more appealing, direct and easily assimilated by the reader. If the latter object is intended then it is belied by the language-not that this is obtuse-far from it. Nevertheless, the whole subject suffers in transmutation from the stimulating and persuasive (if not convincing) presentation of the coloured screen to the printed word. Those who saw the television series will no doubt be struck by the greater effectiveness of the pictorial diagrammatic representation showing the juxtaposition of the various persons and the trajectories of bullets fired in the Ryan case-designed to establish that the accused could not have fired the fatal shot-as opposed to the several pages of text in the book (page 35 ff.) attempting the same result. There seems to be no reason why the latter could not have been leavened if not enlivened by the addition of such material and perhaps photographs. That it was not, reinforces another valuable lesson about the invidious persuasiveness of television. At least the printed word grants a better opportunity for crictical analysis of the author's arguments. (One wonders why the purchasers of the cloth edition of the work should be more shabbily treated than

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