Case studies (chapter 2)

Question 1

Lawyers and police officers on a jury- (Hanif v United Kingdom)

Answer 1

The European Court of Human rights ruled that having a police officer on the jury was a breach of article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights-the right to a fair trial.
-in this case, the police officer juror had immediately alerted the court that he knew one of the prosecution witnesses
-this was important because the evidence of this witness was crucial to the case against the defendant
-the trial judge had ruled that this didn’t matter
-the case continued with the officer being the foreman of the jury and the defendant was convicted. Court of Appeal surprisingly upheld the conviction.

Question 2

Advantages of juries/ Jury equity - R v Randle and Pottle (1991)

Answer 2

-the defendants were charged with helping the spy, George Blake, escape from prison. The prosecution did not take place until 25 years after the escape, when they wrote about what they had done.
-They were acquitted as the jury possibly decided that it was unfair to convict with such a time lapse between the offence and the prosecution.

Question 3

disadvantages of juries - events outside the court room- R v Young(1995)

Answer 3

-defendant was charged with the murder of two people
-jury had to stay overnight in a hotel as they had not reached a verdict by the end of a day of deliberations
-at the hotel ,4 of the jurors held a séance using a Ouija board to try and contact the dead victims and find out who killed them.
-the jury reached a guilty verdict
- when the use of the Ouija board was discovered, the court of appeal quashed the conviction and ordered a retrial.

Question 4

disadvantages of juries- extraneous material - R v Karakaya (2005)

Answer 4

• a juror conducted internet research at home and gave out the printed out results of the search to the jury room
  -the jury convicted Karakaya but when the outside information was found out, the conviction was quashed and a retrial was ordered where the new jury acquitted Karakaya.

Question 5

disadvantages of juries- media influence- R v West (1996)

Answer 5

-Rose west was convicted of the murder of 10 victims
-she tried to appeal that the media coverage was so intense and harrowing that the trial was not fair
-The appeal judge dismissed this stating that if the case, no murder would be tried.
- the judge directed the jury to consider the evidence in the trial.