To convict the criminals is a most important part of lawyers, and this action can affect a person’s future life. Among this, jury stands a big part of a lawyer’s decision making. Some people believe it’s necessary for the jury to know about the criminals’ past facts before reaching the final decision. In my opinion, criminal past records should be given to the jury before reaching a verdict.
On one hand, criminals may have no past cases before doing his/her first crime, at this point, the final decision may have be different if jury know this is his/her first crime. For instance, if jury understand that it’s the criminal first crime, the jury may see the criminal as he/she is too naive and have a poor decision making, but he/she isn’t do it on purpose, which the result of punishments may be dismissed or became lighter. Therefore, criminals can have the chance to improve and correct themselves.
On the other hand, the criminals may have several or many past cases, which by knowing the past records, jury can understand more about the criminals and punish him/her more hard in case of letting him/her free and came back with the same crime. For example, if a crime already have many past records, jury can rapidly decide that there’s no reason to not punish or lighter the punishment for the criminal, which make the decision of the lawyer quickly and efficiently.
In conclusion, have the past facts for the jury may be see as nothing for jury, however, it’s important and seen as a main reason for the criminals be or not to be punished lighter or even provide them another chance to improve themselves.