Whilst sitting in the retiring room having lunch this week one of
my colleagues recounted their time on a jury a few months ago. They said
they found it almost unbelievable, and not in a good way.
After a week and half of sitting around doing nothing other they
were put on a two day trial. The defendant was charged (with an offence). The evidence, I was
told, was absolutely overwhelming. The jury went out and took a
vote. It was in favour of conviction. One of (the minority) wanted to question some of the evidence so they went
through it, quite rightly, in just the same way that a bench of magistrates
goes through the evidence before arriving at a decision. After the
discussion they took another vote, and it became (guilty by a small margin).
Of those for not guilty (one
was unwilling to convict for religious reasons and another for reasons of
principle)..
They went into court to tell the judge they could not reach a
unanimous decision. (the judge gave
the majority direction, but they still couldn’t agree) hence the defendant
walked.
Say what you like about magistrates but in my experience I have
never seen anyone push a vote in a certain direction as a result of openly
expressed prejudices and anyway it would need two of the three to affect the
result.
(posted by Bystander N, edited by Bystander)
Isn't your colleague in contempt for telling you that?
ReplyDeleteNo, not after the trial has ended. Talking about a case during the trial is a no no, but not after its conclusion.
DeleteTalking about the case is fine, but not the jury's deliberations. What happens in the jury room is confidential.
Deletethe judge can accept a 10-2
ReplyDeleteand walked means hung jury therefore should be tried again
That is unacceptable in principle because it means the reasonable doubt of two is being discounted.
DeleteThe view of the other ten, that the case is proved beyond reasonable doubt, means that the two are unreasonable! In the case at hand, two jurors themselves declared that they were unreasonable, i.e. determined not to listen to reason.
DeleteThe system worked fine for centuries, now it's corrupted by ignorant savages and invading Muslims.
ReplyDeleteI was also wondering the same as Thomas Dalton. Should no one have told the court officer about this?
ReplyDeleteJohn Gibson
Religious bigotry is a well-known problem among juries. Atheists in America can never get a fair trial. Another issue regarding the juror who said he would never vote guilty because he and the defendant shared the same religion is that he would probably vote guilty with regards to a defendant of another, rival, religion regardless of the evidence. This is an argument in favour of professional juries who are trained in critical thinking and forensic analysis, not the system that we have at the moment where the definition of a jury is 12 people too stupid to get out of doing jury service.
ReplyDeleteThen god help us if the government ever decide to introduce quotas for minorities or religious groups on juries.
ReplyDeleteWe all know that, given the choice, defendants will always choose Crown Court jury trial. There is a much better chance of getting off... I wonder why?
ReplyDeleteI am astonished that the bias of the (muslim?) juror was not found out before the trial and that he was not barred from service.
ReplyDeleteSurely the man was re-arrested and a mistrial called?
If the jury couldn't reach a decision then that would be a mistrial regardless of the reasons.
DeleteI've never sat on a jury but many many years ago when I was a young lawyer in training, I sat behind defence counsel on a particular case. In those days, lawyers could not be called for jury service so I never thought I would. I was however fascinated at how juries reach their decisions.
ReplyDeleteObviously after the case, (which had gone on for a week) I happened to see one of the by now familiar jury members in the public area - his public duty now done. I asked him how he enjoyed the experience. His words stuck with me for over 30 years. "Yeah well he was obviously guilty, I mean look at the way he was dressed..." (Jacket and bow tie).
My faith in the criminal justice system was thus restored - (irony alert)
There is clearly a great need for research into how juries reach their verdicts, including swearing in several juries and giving each one exactly the same evidence, to see how much variance there is in outcome.
ReplyDeleteI strongly suspect that most adults see jury service in much the same light as I do, namely a very annoying imposition on our time which we could very well do without having to do. Thus most potential jurors will be looking for an out, and the smarter ones will find that way out.
The net result is that we really need to be using professional juries composed of trained personnel (possibly making it obligatory for all members of the Bar to serve on juries or be disbarred) in order to ensure we have smart, critical and unbiased juries.
"most potential jurors will be looking for an out, and the smarter ones will find that way out."
DeleteOne very serious reason for wanting out is the cap on loss of earnings.
A very smart guy in my office recently had to do jury service, but it cost him a lot of money because the daily amount is capped at, I would guess, about a quarter of what he was earning.
If lost earnings were compensated in full, a lot of the discentive to serve would be removed. True, it would cost more, but do we really want juries composed of less-smart-than-average people?
Well, this is a fairly unsurprising story in many respects. Juries reach perverse decisions regularly for reasons less sensible than those described here. But juries also serve the cause of freedom; they have the right to not convict if they believe the law is wrong, which is half the explanation in this case. As for the co-religionists, well, if they are right, they will get their just rewards in this world or the next...
ReplyDeleteThe problem with professional juries is that if someone who is prejudiced, like the person in this story, they are likely to influence tens, maybe hundreds of outcomes based on those prejudices rather than just the one. However well someone is trained, a prejudice is a prejudice.
ReplyDeleteThe core principle of juries is being judged by your peers and if one must be trained and have an education to the Bar level then you are cutting out vast swathes of the population who are just as intelligent but have no interest in going through the training.
No system is perfect and I suspect the above encounter is the exception rather than the norm.
I must be a rarity, as I have been called for jury service twice and have enjoyed the experience. OK, the hanging around can be boring, but the cases on which I served have been a welcome addition to my knowledge of the legal system.
ReplyDeleteIn one of the cases I experienced a vaguely similar situation to Bystander N, in that one member of the jury had strongly-held views that defied the evidence. In the end, a majority verdict was authorised.
On both occasions that I have been called I was working and, yes, I enjoyed my work.
I have no personal jury experience, but a friend (female, early 20s, well educated) said she came under tremendous pressure from her jury. She and one other holdout was not convinced on the evidence that the prosecution had proved the case beyond reasonable doubt. She felt positively intimidated by some of her fellow jurors who wanted a guilty verdict so they wouldn't have to attend court the following week.
ReplyDeleteTales like that do leave a bad taste in the mouth about the process.
I think I have commented on jury trials before. I have never done jury service myself but many of my police colleagues have. This has led to an increase in trials being abandoned because of opinions of other jurors, as the police generally know what is and isn't allowed. In one case a juror declared he didn't believe in jury trials and would find the defendant 'not guilty' no matter what evidence was presented, the other was that a juror had looked up the defendants past convictions on google and told the rest of the jury. In both cases the PC on the jury had to tell the judge and trial had to be abandoned. Often the PC will also know the defendant meaning the case cannot proceed.
ReplyDeleteI'm in favor of professional juries
The PC knowing the defendant won't stop the case proceeding. Jurors get asked if they know anyone involved in the case and simply won't be selected if they do. There are plenty of other jurors available.
DeleteSorry, i should have been more clear. If the PC knows the defendant, it generally means they know their previous offending history, which means they can't sit on that jury and they cannot proceed with that particular case
DeleteI would say the biggest difficulty about jury trials is the administration - the court service, and CPS, are under some degree of pressure. And people don't turn up. The result for me was this: two years' ago I was called for service at Southwark Crown Court. My mother was ill, I was not her sole carer, but I could have done without two weeks of being away from her (I had quit my job to be with her). Nevertheless, believing it to be important, I made arrangements to make my service possible. First week, not used, just sat in a vast hanger with loads of others twiddling our thumbs. Second week, still nothing, until Wednesday afternoon I cracked and told the clerk I was leaving and why. "You should have told us, I would have excused you last week". No comprehension that I wanted, as a professional person, to do my bit. Or that their system for using people was simply rubbish. Ultimate result? I will avoid jury service in future like the plague. Court Service - by all means make the bar very high to get excused, but then use people properly.
ReplyDeleteIsn't part of the problem of jury service that people are called up for duty when it is inconvenient for them? So why not allow people to volunteer for duty when it suits them, and if they get called up at random in future, allow the former to offset the latter, and choose someone else? Fairness will still prevail, in that in volunteering, the volunteer is NOT able to choose which case they want to be on, so still random.
ReplyDeleteWhy does anyone find this surprising? The assessment and evelauation of evidence, and the working through of those conclusions to a proper legal result is a skilled task, far too important to be entrusted to amateurs.
ReplyDeletefor goodnoess ake let us stop this sentimentaility about the jury system. We need either professional jurors (a problematic idea) or to go to trial by judge alome. Jury trial is virtually unknown in civil cases now, and I have never heard any civil practitioner clamouring for its return.
I was called for jury service a few years ago. I completed the response form and included, quite properly, that I had suffered from depression for a number of years but that it was perfectly well controlled by medication, allowing me to hold a responsible and highly pad job. The response that came back was that I was not suitable to be a juror. WTF?
ReplyDeleteIf we really did insist on proof beyond reasonable doubt (as the criminal law requires) and juries fully understood that and applied it rigorously, I doubt whether many convictions would ever be secured before a jury. It is only because juries use gut instinct and all sorts of other unreliable criteria that the prosecution gets a reasonable average of convictions.
ReplyDeleteI have only ever attended two jury trials (sitting behind counsel early in my career). In one case I was convinced that the identification evidence was hopelessly inadequate to secure a conviction but, knowing the defendant's 'form' (which the jury, of course, did not) the result was probably right, even if reached for the wrong reasons.
In the second case (an 8-day trial at the Old Bailey), the jury very properly 'smelt a rat' when they were presented with some obviously very dodgy, not to say wildly exaggerated, police evidence, and they very properly brought in Not Guilty verdicts. The fact that the jury got sent out for several lengthy "voir dires" can't have helped. The challenged evidence was admitted, but the brighter members of the jury must have realised that it was the evidence they heard imediately after they had been sent out each time that was unreliable.
In both trials, I was impressed by the scrupulous fairness of the trial judges. In the second case the judge went to great lengths to explaln the procedure to the jury at every stage of the proceedings.