Juries

Question 1

History of the jury system

Answer 1

• juries have been used in the legal system for over 1,000 years.

Question 2

The independence of the jury

Answer 2

• the independence of the jury became even more firmly established following bushells case
• this case establish that the jury was the sole arbiter of fact and the judge could not challenge its decision.
• a more modern example is the case of r v McKenna.

Question 3

Juries in criminal cases

Answer 3

• the most important use of juries toady is in the crown court where they decided whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. Jury trials, however account for about 2% of all criminal trials. This is because about 94% of cases are dealt with in the magistrates court and the cases that go to the crown court , about two out of every three defendants will plead guilty. A jury in the crown court has 12 members

Question 4

Basic qualifications

Answer 4

• the qualifications are set out in the juries act 1974 so that to qualify for jury service a person must be:
• aged between 18 and 75
• registered as a parliamentary or local government elector
• ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands or the isle of man for at least five years since his 13th birthday

Question 5

Disqualifications

Answer 5

• disqualified permanent from jury service are those who at any time have been sentenced to:
• imprisonment for life, detention for life or custody for life
• detention during his majesty’s pleasure
• imprisonment for public protection or detention for public protection
• an extended sentence
• a term of imprisonment of five years or more or a term of detention of five years or motor

Question 6

Disqualified for 10 years if

Answer 6

• served a sentence of imprisonment
• had a suspended sentence passed on them
• has a community order or other community sentence passed on them
• in addition anyone who is currently on bail in criminal proceedings is disqualified from sitting as a juror
• if a disqualified person fails to disclose the fact and turns up for jury service, he may be fined up to £5,000

Question 7

Mentally disorder persons

Answer 7

• those who suffer from mental illness or mental handicap and on account of that condition are resident in hospital or similar institutions, or regularly attend for treatment
• a person who us under guardianship under section 7 of the mental health act 1983
• a person who has been determined by a judge to be incapable of administering hospital property and affairs
  None of these is allowed to do jury service

Question 8

The right to be excused jury service

Answer 8

• full time serving members of the forces will be excused from jury service if their commanding officer certifies their absence from duty would be prejudicial to the efficiency of the service

Question 9

Discretionary excusals

Answer 9

• anyone who has problems which make it very difficult for them to do their jury service may ask to be excused or for their period of service to be put back to a later date. The court has discretion to grant such an excusal but will only do so if there is a sufficiently good reason e.g, being too ill to attend court, suffering from a disability, mother to a small baby. Other reasons could include business appointments that cannot be undertaken by anyone else, holidays etc
• in these situations the court is most likely to defer jury service to a more convenient date, rather than excuse the person completely. This is stated in the current guidance for summoning officers which is aimed at preventing the high number of discretionary excusals.
• if a person is not excused from jury service he must attend on the date set of he may be fined up to £1,000 for non attendance

Question 10

Lawyers and police officers

Answer 10

• there used to be a category of people who were ineligible for jury service. This included judges and others who had been involved in the administration of justice within the pervious ten years. This category was abolished by the criminal justice act 2003. This means that judges, lawyers, police, etc. are now eligible to serve on juries. Many people feel that this could lead to bias or to a legally well qualified juror influencing the rest of the jury

Question 11

Lack of capacity

Answer 11

• a judge at the court may discharge a person from being a juror for lack of capacity to cope with the trial. This could be because the person does not understand English adequately or because of some disability which makes him unsuitable as a juror. This includes anyone who is blind, and who would be unable to see plans and photographs produced in evidence.
• the juries act 1974 was added into the act by the criminal justice and public order - makes it clear that the mere fact of a disability does not prevent someone from acting as a juror. The judge can only discharge the juror is he is satisfied that the disability means that the juror is not capable of acting effectively as a juror

Question 12

Deaf jurors

Answer 12

• Those who are deaf and need a sign language interpreter cannot sit as jurors. This is because the law does not allow a 13th person to be present in the room

Question 13

Selecting a jury

Answer 13

• at each crown court there is an official who is responsible for summoning enough jurors to try the cases that will be heard in each two week period. This official will arrange for names to be selected at random from the electoral registers for the area which the court covers. This is done through a computer selection at a central office. It is necessary to summon more than 12 jurors as most courts have more than one courtroom and it will not be known how many of those summonsed are disqualified or may be excused. In fact, at the bigger courts up to 150 summonses may be sent out each fortnight
• those summonsed mist notify the court if there is any reason why they should not or cannot attend, all others are expected to attend for two weeks jury service, though if the case they are trying does on for more than two weeks they will have to stay until the trail trial is completed. Where it is known that a trail may be may be exceptionally long, such as a complicated fraud trial, potential jurors are asked if they will be able to serve for such long period of time

Question 14

Vetting

Answer 14

• once the list of potential jurors is know, both the prosecution and the defence have the right to see that list. In some cases it may be decided that this pool of potential jurors should be ‘vetted’, i.e, checked for suitability. There are two types:
• police checks
• wider background checks

Question 15

Selection at court

Answer 15

• the jurors are usually divided into groups of 15 and allocated to a court. At the start of a trial the court clerk will select 12 out of these 15 at random

Question 16

Challenging

Answer 16

• once the court clerk has selected the panel of 12 jurors, these jurors come into the jury box to be sworn in as jurors. At this point, before the jury is sworn in, both the prosecution and the defence have certain rights to challenge one or more of the jurors. These are:
• to the array
• for cause
• prosecution right to stand by jurors

Question 17

To the array

Answer 17

• this right to challenge is given by the juries act and it is a challenge to the whole jury on the basis that it has been chosen in an unrepresentative to biased way. A challenge to the array was used in r v ford when it was held that if the jury was chosen in random manner then it could not be challenged simply because it was not multi racial

Question 18

For cause

Answer 18

• this involves challenging the right of an individual juror to sit on the jury. To be successful the challenge mist point out a valid reason why that juror should not serve on the jury. An obvious reason is that the juror is disqualified, by a challenge for cause can also be made if the juror knows or is related to a witness or defendant. If such people are not removed from the jury there is a risk that any Susquehanna convictions could be quashed

Question 19

Prosecution right to stand by jurors

Answer 19

• this is a right that only the prosecution can exercise. It allows the juror who has been stood by to put to the end a lost of potential jurors, so that he will not be used on the jury unless there are not enough other jurors. The prosecution does not have to give a reason for ‘standing by’ but the attorney generals guidelines make it clear that this power should be used sparingly

Question 20

The jury’s role in criminal cases

Answer 20

• the jury is used only at the crown court for cases where the defendant pleads not guilty. This means that a jury is used in fewer than 30,000 cases each year

Question 21

Split function

Answer 21

• the trial is presided over by a judge and the functions split between the judge and jury. The judge decides points of law and the jury decides the facts. At the end of the prosecution case, the judge has the power to direct the jury to acquit the defendant if he decides that, in law, the prosecutions evidence has not made out a case against the defendant. This is called a directed acquittal
• where the trial continues , the judge will sum up the case at the end, to the jury and direct in on any law involved. The jury retires to a private room and makes the decision on the guilt or innocence of the accused in secret.

Question 22

Secrecy

Answer 22

• the jury discussion takes place in secret and there can be no inquiry into how the jury reaches its verdict. The criminal justice and courts act 2015 makes it a criminal offence to intentionally disclose or ask about anything that happens in the jury room. This includes any opinions expressed or votes vastly by members of a jury in the course of the deliberations.
• the criminal justice and courts act 2015 also gives the power to the judge to ask jurors to hand in their mobile phones or other electronic communication devices. Where the judge makes such an order and a juror disobeys it, then the jurors is in contempt of court

Question 23

Advantages of jury trial

Answer 23

• public confidence
• jury equity
• open system of justice
• secrecy of the jury room
• impartiality

Question 24

Public confidence

Answer 24

• asking 12 strangers who have no legal knowledge and without any training to decide what may be complex and technical points is an absurd one. Yet the jury is considered one of the fundamentals of a democratic society. The right to be tried by ones peers is a bastion of liberty against the state and has been supported by eminent judges.

Question 25

Jury equity

Answer 25

• since jurors are not legal experts, they are not bound to follow the precedent of past cases or even acts of parliament, and do not have to give reasons for their verdict, it is possible for them decide cases on their idea of ‘fairness’. This is something referred to as jury equity. Several cases have shown the importance in this. Such as pontings case.

Question 26

Open system of justice

Answer 26

• the use of a jury is viewed as making the legal system more open. Justice is seen to be done as members of the public are involved in a key role and the whole process is public. It also helps to keep the law clearer as points have to be explained to the jury, enabling the the defendant to understand the case more easily

Question 27

Secrecy of the jury room

Answer 27

• this can be seen as an advantage, since the jury is free from pressure in its discussion. Jurors are protected from the outside influences when deciding on the verdict. This allows juries to bring in verdicts that may be unpopular with the public as well as allowing jurors the freedom to ignore the strict letter of the law. It has been suggested that people would be less willing to serve on a jury if they knew that their discussion could be made public

Question 28

Impartiality

Answer 28

• a jury should be impartial as it is not connected to anyone in the case. The process of random selection should result in a cross section society and this should also lead an impartial jury, as the jurors will have different prejudices and so should cancel out each others biases. No one individual person is responsible for the decision. A jury is also not case hardened since it sits for only two weeks and is unlikely to try more than three or four cases in that time

Question 29

Disadvantages of jury trial

Answer 29

• perverse decisions
• secrecy
• exceptions
• jurors and the internet
• racial bias
• media influence
• lack of understanding
• fraud trials
• jury tampering
• high acquittal rates

Question 30

secrecy

Answer 30

• earlier we considered how the secrecy of the jury projects jurors from pressure. However, the secrecy of the jury room is also a disadvantages because no reasons have to be given from the verdict, there is no way of knowing if the jury understood the case and came to the decision from the right reasons
• in r v mirza.

Question 31

Jurors and the internet

Answer 31

• judges direct jurors not to look at the internet for information. However, internet research by jurors has become more common - in 2010 a report ‘are juries fair?’ She found that 12% of jurors admitted they had looked on the internet for information about cases they were trying.
• the criminal justice and courts act 2015 makes it a criminal offence for a juror to search the internet intentionally for information relevant to the case

Question 32

Racial bias

Answer 32

• although jurors have no direct interest in a case, and despite the fact that there are 12 of them, they may still have prejudices which can affected the verdict. Some jurors may be biased against the police
• in particular there is the worry that some jurors are racially prejudiced. Shown in the case sander v United Kingdom

Question 33

Media influence

Answer 33

• media coverage may influence jurors. This is especially true in high profile cases, where there has been a lot of publicity about police investigations into a case. One case where media coverage was held to have influenced the jury was r v Taylor and Taylor

Question 34

Other disadvantages

Answer 34

The compulsory nature of jury service is unpopular, so that some jurors may be against the whole system, while others may rush their verdict in order to leave as quickly as possible. Jury service can be a strain, especially where juries have to listen to horrific evidence.