Judges Flashcards
What is the current role of the judge?
The current role of the judge is the oversee the court and direct the jury on what they should do, whilst they can urge them to acquit they cannot urge to convict a defendant.
What did S.44 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 introduce?
Introduced judge only courts in England and Wales under the following circumstances:
(4) ‘evidence of a real and present danger that jury tampering would take place’
(5) ‘notwithstanding any steps (including the provision of police protection) which might reasonably be taken to prevent jury tampering, likelihood that [jury tampering] would take place would be so substantial as to make it necessary in the interests of justice for the trial to be conducted without a jury’
How did jury tampering affect R v Twomey (2009)?
2 jurors had been approached in a retrial for a case of armed robbery, at which point the prosecution applied for the 2nd retrial to be conducted without a jury.
To decide whether s.44 should be invoked Calvert-Smith J found that there was a ‘real and present danger’ that jury tampering would happen again at the retrial.
However he decided that a protection package (which included more than 30 police officers costing around £1.5m) would be enough to ensure that there was no intimidation of the jurors this time round.
Why did the Prosecution appeal Judge Calvert-Smith’s decision in R v Twomey and what was the outcome?
the prosecution appealed this and the Court of Appeal stated that the criminal standard of proof had satisfied the conditions necessary for a judge only trial.
Lord Judge CJ said that the first condition, that there must be ‘real and present danger’ of jury interference, was ‘emphatically established’.
The second condition requires that after sufficient measures have been taken to reduce the risk of jury tampering, there would still be a sufficiently high likelihood of tampering.
Judge CJ confirmed that a more extensive protection package costing around £6m ‘did not sufficiently address the potential problem of interference with jurors through their families’.
Therefore the case was heard without a jury
