I'm sure there are guilty people walk free from court - but I know that there are innocent people who are convicted.

The same day that David Blunkett announced his plans for changing the law to make it easier to get convictions, two men who had served 25 years in jail for murder were acquitted on appeal.

They'd maintained their innocence throughout, and had served a lot longer in jail because of refusing to say they had done it, because that's how parole works. The guilty, or the innocent who lie and say they were guilty get out quicker than those who are innocent and insist that they are innocent.

And there've been plenty more like that. And that is just counting the ones who finally got a court to overturn the verdict.

It's almost certain that whatever restrictions there may be on the cases where people can be retried for the same evidence, these will in practice be extended. It won't just be cases where absolutely cast iron new evidence has come up, it'll be cases where the authorities are determined on getting a conviction, and where there is some kind of evidence that can be argued to prove guilt.

Effectively the judge who decides thta a retrial is in order will have determined that the once-acquitted person is guilty, because the very decision to allow a retrial will signal to the jury that the evidence is irrefutable.

It's a very risky business taking away rights that have been there a long time. We've already got majority verdicts in the UK, "Twelve Angry Men" wouldn't be possible here.

As for OJ Simpson, a jury who heard a lot more about the case, and spent a lot more time thinking about it than many of us have, decided that they didn't think the case had been proved beyond a reasonable doubt. When a jury decides that, and acquits, it's doing what it's there for.