Anyone here a crown court judge?

The concept of it is to be judged by your peers. That includes people without a decent education and formal qualifications etc.

I think if we were to exclude people without qualifications, then when will the line be drawn? It’s a slippery slope.

Juries are on the whole guided quite well by the judge

Juries are better than Magistrates who are volunteers rely on the legal experience of a court clerk to guide them.

Lots of people are unfairly sentenced due to sanctimonious Magistrates. District judges are far better in court when they sit in for magistrates

Surely there should be a certain level of education for jurors. I'm not saying they should all have a degree but it's worrying that PP found them as "thick as mince". Maybe at least insist they have GCSE Maths and English.

I was a police officer ( now retired ) and I only ever lost one case at Crown court but I have heard some shocking stories. A colleague did jury service and was appalled by the irrational comments by some of the jury. Effectively saying that the defence barrister was obviously a well educated woman and there was no way she would defend someone who was guilty. 🙄. I mean thick as mince. At least comment on the quality of the evidence. I was called for jury service but not used sadly - I was interested in seeing it from the other side.

Wtaf??? My gosh !!!!!

Same as my case also

Isn't it shocking

I felt like the judge agreed with us when I was a juror. It was a case where the defendant had said 'no comment' to all police questions and then brought up lots of supossed alibis which the prosection then couldn't refute. We found guilty of the lesser count and hung jury on main charge, which meant they could go to retrial, and he was then found guilty. It was realistically the best possible outcome.
It was astounding though some of the views among the older male jurors, along the lines of 'look at her, she was clearly asking for it'. Along with another who was going on holiday the next day so very keen to wrap it up quickly

This was my experience of being on a jury. Several people just wanted to finish the trial earlier so were willing to go with whatever verdict would get them home sooner, and one person in particular was a bully who could not have anyone disagree with his opinion. Luckily the trial collapsed for other reasons but I had absolutely no faith in the process after seeing that.

I've had three close family members do Jury service and they said it was staggering how some people either just did not care about the verdict and would vote any way just so they could go home or they would have their own prejudices which meant they voted a certain way and disregarded actual evidence.

Have you watched the show they did on channel 4 where they got 2 juries to listen to a trial and they both came to different verdicts? It happened because strong characters on the jury basically persuaded/bullied others in to changing their mind.

I was also the victim in a court case once, they had to accept a majority because one person would not vote guilty, I could tell you exactly who it was just by the way he looked at me when I was giving my evidence.

I'm a police officer and I'd love to know this too!
Our colleagues have had interesting chats about this lately.
Most of us are happy with the idea of juries being used less. The criminal justice system is under so much pressure. A lawyer last week said they had had a trial booked in for 2030. That's when they're booking in trials. That was for a drugs offence so not a serious complex trial.

Juries often go with a gut feeling instead of dispassionate view of the facts presented to them, ime.

Quiet Saturday night?

I think it’s vanishingly unlikely a judge would come on here and answer that.

I know it’s meant to be anonymous but there’s ways of finding out I’m sure.

When I worked for a certain govt dept we were told absolutely you don’t go on MN and talk about the sector we work in.

Oh 😬

The OP is asking about the judge. The judge hears the whole trial.

It’s not possible for anyone to say whether they agree with a verdict or not , only those who have listened to the whole trial can make their own decision.