Jury System

Question 1

Role of the Juries in Civil trials:

Answer 1

Act as an independent decision maker and decider of the facts.
Listen to all evidence presented without any bias or preconceived ideas
Weigh up all the evidence, follow directions and apply the law
Apply the standard of proof ‘balance of probabilities’
Optional - only used in Supreme/County Court
May determine appropriate damages that the plaintiff may be entitled to.

Question 2

Role of the Juries in Criminal trials:

Answer 2

Act as an independent decision maker and decider of the facts.
Listen to all evidence presented without any bias or preconceived ideas
Weigh up all the evidence, follow directions and apply the law
Apply the standard of proof ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
Compulsory in Criminal cases in the Supreme and County Courts.

Question 3

A unanimous verdict is

Answer 3

accepted in all trials, and occurs when all jurors vote the same way. This is 12/12 in a criminal trial and 6/6 in a civil trial.

Question 4

A majority verdict is

Answer 4

accepted in most trials. For a majority verdict to be accepted, the jury must be deliberating for 6 hours or more in a criminal trial or 3 hours or more in a civil trial. This occurs when all but one juror votes in the same way.

Question 5

A hung jury occurs when

Answer 5

more than one juror votes against the common vote. In this circumstance, a verdict has not been reached.

Question 6

Empanelling a jury:

Answer 6

1. The Juries commissioner advises the Electoral Commission of the number of jurors needed. Names are randomly selected from the electoral roll.
2. Potential jurors are sent a Notice of Jury Selection questionnaire to determine their eligibility, this must be returned within 14 days.
3. Once the questionnaires are returned, potential jurors are classified as disqualified, ineligible, excused, eligible.
4. The name or number of each prospective juror is called out. The accused (or their legal counsel) may challenge a juror or the prosecution may request that a juror stand aside. Jurors who have been asked to stand aside must wait until the end of the challenging process.

Question 7

Disqualified:

Answer 7

Past behavior makes a person inappropriate to sit on a jury. This may be due to a previous criminal record or being bankrupt.

Question 8

Excused:

Answer 8

Jury services would cause unnecessary hardship. The juror either has a right to be excused or must request permission to be excused. Examples of a right includes living more than 50km from the court, being of advanced age. Examples of a request includes being a sole carer of another individual, or commitments such as exams.

Question 9

Ineligible:

Answer 9

Due to the potential juror’s work or personal characteristics making them unable to hear a case fairly. Examples of professions include working as a judge or police officer. Examples of personal characteristics include being blind/deaf or unable to understand English.

Question 10

Eligible:

Answer 10

The juror is appropriate for service and will receive a summons to appear on a set date.

Question 11

Peremptory challenges are

Answer 11

where a party does not need to give reason for challenging a juror, and where the judge cannot refuse the dismissal. Each party has 6 peremptory challenges in criminal trials and 3 in civil trials.

Question 12

Advantages of Peremptory challenges:

Answer 12

• Can remove possible jurors with a bias. For example, in rape cases, women may be excluded from the jury due to possible bias or sympathetic verdicts.
• Allows greater involvement by the parties, which may lead to greater party satisfaction. It also allows for greater confidence in the system by the parties involved.

Question 13

Disadvantages of Peremptory Challenges:

Answer 13

• May skew the distribution and demographic of the jury panel. Thus, not correctly abiding to the principle of ‘trial by peers’ in regards to it being a true cross-section of the community. Example: 52% of the jury pool in criminal cases are female, but only 44% of the jury members selected are female.
• However, by allowing parties to challenge a juror without question, they may decide to ‘stack the jury’ and make a more favorable outcome. This means, the system isn’t completely ‘fair and unbiased’, as the outcome may be inaccurate or unjust.

Question 14

Challenges for cause are where

Answer 14

the party must provide reason for the challenging of a specific juror, and where the judge will determine if the reason provided is valid or invalid (if invalid, the juror will join the jury). If the judge determines that the reason is valid, the juror will be excused. Both parties may make an unlimited number of for cause challenges.

Question 15

Majority Verdict (Recent Reform)

Answer 15

• Majority verdicts have been introduced in criminal cases (except murder, treason, commonwealth offences etc.)
• If a unanimous verdict cannot be reached after 6 hours in a criminal trial, a majority verdict will be accepted as verdict of all the jury.
• This speeds up the process of reaching a verdict and it is more likely that a verdict can be reached → timely resolution.

Question 16

Simplifying Jury Directions (Recent Reform)

Answer 16

After presentation of cases, directions are when the judge instructs the jury, summaries the cases, clarifies the issues involved in cross-examination and points of law.
The VLRC’s 2009 report on Jury Directions recognized directions being delivered to jurors provides grounds for the disproportionate amount of avoidable jury direction related appeals and retrials. In 2010 alone, jury direction related retrials made up 14 of the 18 retrials.

Question 17

The Juries Directions Act 2015 (VIC)

1:

Answer 17

•Discussions between counsel and the trial judge will identify the issues in dispute and the directions can then be tailored to address those issues. This is designed to lead to shorter, more helpful summings up that are closely targeted to the matters in issue in the trial.

Question 18

Juries Provide Reasons (Suggested Reform)

Answer 18

The jury foreperson could give a verbal summary of the jury’s overall reasons when they deliver the verdict - ‘succinct rationale’.

Question 19

Advantages of Jury Providing Reasons

Answer 19

• Would force jurors to show they understand the case and remembered the evidence and law from it, an would enable parties and appeal courts to check that the verdict was given fairly and correctly.
• Requiring reasons could ensure jurors pay more careful attention, or provide a means of discovering if a misunderstanding has taken place.
• Judges, lawyers and parties could find out more about how the case was viewed by regular people. They could use this information to better accept the verdict, and to improve the way in which they explain things in the future.

Question 20

Disadvantages of Jury Providing Reasons

Answer 20

• All jurors may have significantly different reasons for the verdict. This would make it impossible to deliver a ‘succinct rationale’ on behalf of the entire jury, and could make the verdict look unreliable.
• Written reasons could unfairly and inefficiently open up more cases to appeals. This increases cost and court backlog, and decrease the ability for parties to move on with their lives.
• It is unfair to hold untrained members of the community to the same legal, written standard as an experienced judge. It may also discourage them from taking community values into account, as they may feel that only technical, legal reasons are appropriate for a written rationale.

Question 21

Introduce ‘not proven’ verdicts (suggested reforms)

Answer 21

This means that the jury is stating that not enough evidence was provided and the defendant can be found neither guilty/liable nor not guilty/not liable with any confidence.The case can then be brought back to court at a later date once more evidence has been collected.

Question 22

Advantages of ‘not proven’ verdicts

Answer 22

•The jury would not feel pressured into making a decision either way if there was a genuine case against the defendant, but one that needed to be proved more fully. In other words, fewer guilty defendants may be found not guilty.

Question 23

Disadvantages of ‘not proven’ guilty

Answer 23

• Defendant would be denied an element of natural justice, as they would not be able to move on with their lives. Adjourning the case for a long period of time would put an unreasonable strain on their finances, and be enormously stressful.
• The prosecution would have less incentive to ensure there case was strong before going to trial. They could use trial as a ‘testing ground’ to see how much evidence they needed leading to an increase in costs and delays.

Question 24

Advantages of Reduction of Peremptory Challenges

Answer 24

• Would reduce stereotyping for challenges as the rate of challenges for women is twice as many to men.
• They allow for an unrepresentative nature of the cross-section of society, as for example, 52% of the jury pool are women however only 44% are a part of the actual jury. (Cultural overhang).
• Jurier Commissioner said they ‘only serve to confuse, discriminate and offend citizens who have both a right and civic responsibility to serve on a jury’.

Question 25

Disadvantages of Reduction of Peremptory Challenges

Answer 25

• The rationale for allowing PC’s is that it gives the parties to have an input and connection with the case allowing for greater participation level by parties.
• They are a justified exercise by parties as it gives them more confidence with their case as they can retain their case.

Question 26

Hears Trials by Judge Alone (Alternatives)

Answer 26

• This occurs in the Magistrate’s Court and in many civil trials held at the County and Supreme Courts (0.37% of cases heard by jury).
• In the Alqudsi case, Alqudsi breached commonwealth laws and applied for a trial by judge alone. This was as he believed that the jury would be exposed to pre-trial publicity, affecting or altering the outcome of his trial.

Question 27

Advantages of Trial by Judge Alone

Answer 27

• Courtroom language would not need to be simplified so that a layperson jury could understand it. This comes as some law and evidence cannot be simplified.
• Trials would be more efficiently run. Time would not need to be taken for empanelment, excusing the jury for parts of the trial they shouldn’t hear, explaining points of law to the jury, or for jury deliberations.
• The cost of trials would reduce if a jury did not need to be paid for.

Question 28

Disadvantages of Trial by Judge alone

Answer 28

• Diminishes trial by peers. The community would not be acting as a check on the power of government, and an element of a democratic system would be lost.
• A range of community values would no longer be brought into the courtroom. Diminishes cross-section of society.

Question 29

Employ Professional Jurors (Alternative)

Answer 29

Jurors could be hired, trained, and employed by the state to sit on cases on a full time basis.They could be trained in general court procedure and legal principles, but also receive specialized areas relevant to the court jurisdiction where they worked.

Question 30

Advantages of Professional Jurors

Answer 30

No need for extensive and expensive jury selection process, as jurors would be present in the court to be called when needed.
•Jurors would develop expertise and not be swayed by irrelevant or emotional legal manoeuvring in court. The verdict would therefore be based on more legal, objective and correct grounds.
•Be better expected to be able to provide feedback to the court and reasons for their decisions. This would increase accountability and transparency, and allow parties to understand and appeal the verdict.

Question 31

Disadvantages of Professional Jurors

Answer 31

• Professional jurors would get to know each other and reach a common ground after years of working together, so cases might not be examined from a range of vastly different angles. May also develop common biases and prejudices.
• If employed by the state, they would not be a check on the power of the government. If they were employed on contract they would have no independence.
• Jury would no longer be introducing contemporary values and community expectations in the courtroom if they were part of the legal system and trained to make purely legal decisions.

Question 32

Specialist Jurors (Alternatives)

Answer 32

• Given the complex nature of evidence in many cases, it could be beneficial for the trial judge to empanel a specialist jury.
• This jury would have specialist knowledge in the required fields (e.g. Accounting, Science etc.) or may be a specialist in a particular area of law. This would be used when it is clear that a non-professional person would not be able to appropriately grasp the key issues surrounding the case.

Question 33

Advantages of Specialist Jurors

Answer 33

In areas of highly technical terminology and concepts such as medical malpractice cases, a juror will most likely not be able to fully understand the evidence. Therefore, the use of a specialist juror will offer a greater level of analysis on the evidence, and may result in a more accurate verdict.

Question 34

Disadvantages of Specialist Jurors

Answer 34

Expert panels may be very expensive for courts, as engineers, doctors, accountants etc. may request payments for their service to the community. This may result in higher court costs and a greater level of inaccessibility for the public.

The specialist jurors may not represent a true cross-section of society, and therefore, may not make the best decision on behalf of the current society’s views and values. This simply does not abide with the concept of ‘trial by your peers’, as the jurors chosen are not random.

Question 35

Strengths of the Jury System

Answer 35

• ury verdicts are made by a panel of either 6 or 12 people. This is more just because the decision is not made by one judge alone, better spreading the responsibility of delivering a verdict.
• A strength of juries is that is a cross-section of society. Mde up of men and women who represent a range of people of the community from different occupations, education, age cultures. These people are diverse in their backgrounds and are not selected as people in a position of authority such as a MP or lawyer who are ineligible. These jurors have been randomly selected from the Electoral Commission, and the Juries Commissioner will then decide whether the person is liable for jury service.
• rial by jury represents trial by one’s peers. The jury is able to reflect community values and bring a commonsense approach to decision-making in the court as the decision is more likely to be accepted by the community because impartial ‘ordinary people’ decide the outcome. It is able to take into account the social, moral and economic values of the time, and make a decision from the point of an ordinary citizen. Also, trial by peers enables the decision making to be spread over more shoulders, rather than being placed sole in the hands of the judge, allowing the accused to feel confident that they are not being oppressed by authority
• a jury needs to only return with a verdict of guilty or not guilty, or of liable or not liable. This means that the jury can carefully follow the points of law as expressed by the judge and deliver a fair verdict on the basis of the evidence brought before the court.

Question 36

Disadvantages of Jury System

Answer 36

jury is not a true-cross section of society. This is as some people are disqualified (prison), ineligible (lawyer) or excused (illness). Also, challenges (peremptory/for cause) can be made allowing the parties to have some say in the composition of the decision-makers in their case. A decision of the jury may not, therefore, reflect community values.

if the jury were required to give a reason for its decision, the accused in a criminal trial would know why they had been found guilty and the parties in a civil case would know why the jury had decided the way it did. The parties would also know whether due attention had been given to points of law, rather than the jury making a decision according to what they believe is right in the circumstances. This leads to greater finality for the prosecution and also makes it easier to appeal allowing for natural justice to occur.

Because legal personnel have to explain the legal terms they use to the jury, the trial is likely to take longer. A longer trial is likely to be more expensive, inconvenient and traumatic for the parties involved, and lead to delays in bringing matters to court because they take up more court time.

Question 37

The Juries Directions Act 2015 (VIC)

2:

Answer 37

Integrated directions present the issues in the trial to the jury in a way that is easier to understand and apply. Integrated directions embed the legal issues in factual questions; a question trail will focus on the issues in the case and assist the jury with their deliberations.