Lecture 6 part 1 Flashcards
Criminal case
- Act committed, criminal code of Canada
- Judge or 12 member jury with unanimous decision
Civil case
- Breach of contract or claim of harm
- Judge or 6 or 8 member jury that isn’t necessarily unanimous
Summary offense
- Less than 6 months in prison
- Less than $2000 fine
- Does not have right to trial by jury
Indictable offense
- Less serious, judge only
- Highly serious, judge and jury
- Some indictable offenses, accused chooses if by judge and jury or judge alone
Hybrid offense
- Cross between summary and indictable offense
- Crown chooses to prosecute by either summary or indinctment
- Impaired driving, assault, theft under $5000
Jury selection
- The Juries Act: Guidlines for jury eligibility/ineligibility criteria, outlines how they must be selected
- Differs between provinces
Jury selection Ontario
- Canadian citizen, 18+, lives in Ontario
- Cannot be convicted of offense, work in law enforcement, medical doctor, vet, coroner, judge, justice of peace, law student, or have physical or mental disabilities preventing performance
Jury selection challenges
- Peremptory challenge
- Challenge for cause
Peremptory challenge
- Does not need to provide reason for rejection
- 20 for murder trials, 12 for other crimes
Challenge for cause
- Must give reason for rejection
- Canadian lawyers only know name, address, accoupation, demeanor about prospective jurors
Characteristics of juries
- Representativenes
- impartiality
Representativeness of juries
- Composition that represents the community
- Achieved through randomness
- Crown/defence may challenge this
R v Stanley
- Aboriginal man trespassed on Stanley’s property and got shot
- Acquitted with all white jury
Lacobucci’s report
Review how aboriginals are selected for jury duty
Impartiality
- Must set aside any pre-existing biases, prejudices, or attitudes
- Must ignore any information not a part of admissible evidence
- Must have no connection with defendent
Pretrial publicity
- Threat to impartiality
- Concerns that media will influence the verdict
- Can cause predecisional distortion
How do courts keep jurors impartial
- Change in venue
- Adjourment
- Challenge for cause
- Publication ban
Change of venue to keep jurors impartial
- Difficult to have impartial juror in community crime was committed
- Pretrial publicity, Heinous crime, small community
Adjourment to keep juror impartial
- Infrequent
- Delaying trial until sometime in the future
- Ensures bias will dissipate from jury pool
Challenge for cause to keep juror impartial
- Reject biased jurors
- Ask questions that are pre-approved by the judge
Publication ban to keep jurors impartial
- Pre-trial information cannot be published until juror selected
- After juror selection, minimal information published
- Full publicity available after case has begun
Legal functions of jury
- Decide facts from trial evidence
- Decide on a verdict
Deliberation
Jurors discuss amongts themselve to decide on a verdict
Reaching a verdict
- Source memory
- Group polarization
- Leniency bias
Source memory
- Jurors making memory errors from incorrectly attributing pretiral publication to the trial
- Collaboration can increase errors in memory and one’s confidence in incorrect memories
Group polarization
Deliberation shown to heighten biases that majority of group members have
Leniency bias
Jurors may be less likely to make a guilty vote after deliberating
Issues with inadmissible evidence
Jurors have hard time ignoring evidence deemed inadmissible in court
CSI effect
- Jurors have been found to rely on what they see on tv to evaluate evidence in court
- More CSI type shows, more likely to say evidence was sufficient to prove the accused to be guilty
