Jury service expenses are ridiculous

if you’re interested in the ‘judicial process’ read up on it, go and watch a trial - it’s all open to you to do so. And very possibly you’ll see more by sitting in the public gallery because there will be legal argument that the jury are not permitted to hear. As has been clear form the outset, juries aren’t paid for their task, and many people barely cover expenses. It’s a grim and boring process and a jury don’t see all the judicial procsss anyway.

You’re demonstrating exactly why juries are a terrible idea. It’s not a fascinating fortnight out without having to use annual leave, it’s a huge decision affecting the lives of one or more people forever. It shouldn’t be in the hands of some people who have never seen or understood the process.

Do we really want jurors to be racist misogynists with poor critical thinking skills? Can a jury with such jurors ever deliver justice?

You. You pissed on my chips. You took a couple of simple sentences and made out like I’d said the most contradictory thing ever with your faux bafflement.

Quite obviously (I thought) I would not love to hear the details of some poor sod losing their life. It didn’t occur to me anyone would think that because you’d have to be a monster to relish hearing that and we are all strangers. Stupidly, I thought that it wouldn’t need to be explained. I specified one particular crime that I thought I would be unable to cope with. That very clearly does not mean that I’d be sat there having a whale of a time listening to the details of some other horrific act of violence. Why the fuck would that even enter your head?

What I would ‘love’ is to see all aspects of the judicial process and be able to see it from day one, right through to the verdict, while still getting paid for it and not having to use up any annual leave for it. It is the legal process that I would like to see, not the details of people being hurt. I don’t understand why you’d try and turn a couple of innocent comments into some macabre fascination with violence.

Jeez, who pissed on your chips? Baffled, curious, puzzled - take your pick. I find it inane/bizarre/obscene that someone would ‘love’ to sit on a murder trial, or anything where someone had been harmed. It’s not a television show.

And yes, it’s terrifying that random strangers make life changing decisions with zero training or accountability. No doubt they would have said they’d ‘love’ to sit on a jury. And look how terrifying they turned out to be.

Why are MNetters always baffled when they think someone has contradicted themselves? It’s never that they don’t understand, or they’re puzzled or curious. It’s always bafflement 🙄

You’d love to do JS so long as it wasn’t an upsetting case No, that’s not what I said. I said I’d love to do JS so long as it wasn’t abuse of a child. I’m quite happy with a good old fashioned bank robbery, or a murder or fraud or any one of a million other crimes. Just I think I’d really struggle with a case involving children and I have the utmost sympathy and respect for jurors who have to listen to the evidence in such cases.

but also you’ve seen that show and concluded it’s ’terrifying’ but you’d love to do it? Yes, I found it terrifying how many people were judging guilt or innocence based on their own experiences and what they would have done in a similar situation, rather than on the evidence provided.

Second these comments. I served on a jury hearing evidence in a paedophile case.
So dreadful - unanimously guilty decisions on 20+ charges. Difficult discussions had to be had yet afterwards we had a quick 5 minutes in the jury room before leaving , no follow ups etc.
Cost me a hell of a lot more than lost income.

Why are MNetters always baffled when they think someone has contradicted themselves? It’s never that they don’t understand, or they’re puzzled or curious. It’s always bafflement 🙄

You’d love to do JS so long as it wasn’t an upsetting case No, that’s not what I said. I said I’d love to do JS so long as it wasn’t abuse of a child. I’m quite happy with a good old fashioned bank robbery, or a murder or fraud or any one of a million other crimes. Just I think I’d really struggle with a case involving children and I have the utmost sympathy and respect for jurors who have to listen to the evidence in such cases.

but also you’ve seen that show and concluded it’s ’terrifying’ but you’d love to do it? Yes, I found it terrifying how many people were judging guilt or innocence based on their own experiences and what they would have done in a similar situation, rather than on the evidence provided.

Don't be under the illusion that its a nice environment to 'sit around reading a book and people watching'

There's not enough seats. There will be a TV blasting trash daytime TV. There will be people watching shit on their phones without headphones. The room will likely be too hot or too cold. There will be people constantly talking loudly and coming and going. The toilets will be horrible. You will have the opportunity to pay over the odds for poor quality refreshments. You will mix with a lot of people expressing views you disagree with. You will have to queue up and be searched every time you enter the building.

If you want to recreate the experience I suggest you go and sit in A&E on a Saturday night or in a regional airport on the first day of the school holidays.

Second these comments. I served on a jury hearing evidence in a paedophile case.
So dreadful - unanimously guilty decisions on 20+ charges. Difficult discussions had to be had yet afterwards we had a quick 5 minutes in the jury room before leaving , no follow ups etc.
Cost me a hell of a lot more than lost income.

Can’t work out from your post what you actually think. You’d love to do JS so long as it wasn’t an upsetting case but also you’ve seen that show and concluded it’s ’terrifying’ but you’d love to do it? I’m baffled!

Out if interest, did you ask to be excused and were refused, or did you not ask? It would be awful if people could not be excused on grounds of genuine financial need.

Thanks for your reply, interesting reading. No, I haven’t served in a jury. I’d find it interesting I think but like a huge number of others on here would struggle - self employed with 2 young children. Childcare for the 2 of them would cost £125 for each day and I’m self employed. The nature of my work means I work unpaid for much of the week (doing marketing etc) but if I have a booking I take £600ish for the day. If I had no bookings theoretically I’d lose no money but the impact would be later on where I had no bookings due to no time spent marketing for 2 weeks.

I take your point that jurors don’t need to know the law. I agree unconscious bias is a huge issue, but I don’t see that 12 random people off the street will necessarily have less unconscious bias than professionals. Perhaps professional juries could have extensive training in unconscious bias rather than what the the law is.

My (extremely intelligent) friend did jury duty and found the whole thing extremely frustrating for many of the reasons already mentioned (organisation, hanging around etc). I don’t know the details obviously as she couldn’t share them but she said that a number of jurors seemed not very bright and were lead by things which they weren’t supposed to let influence them and the defendant got off when in her mind he was obviously guilty. The charge was something lots of people wouldn’t think that serious (ie not rape, murder) and some of the jurors didn’t seem to think he’d done much wrong even if he was guilty and were happy to let him off as a result.

Have you served on a jury? Genuine question.

my one positive takeaway from my 3 weeks service 18 months ago (see my previous post on sheer frustrations) was the attitude and approach by all the jurors.

it is a common misconception that the jurors need knowledge of law and therefore “spent years training on the law and are experts on it, hearing evidence and deciding if the law has been broken” would produce a better, quicker judgement. That is simply not the jurors job. That’s judges job to explain the law, it’s the CPS barrister and his their terms job is to present evidence of the crime, and defences to present evidence on why the defendant hasn’t broken the law. The jurors job is simple: which evidence do we believe is the truth. That’s it. What We agree is the truth is the verdict of guiltily or not guilty. Jurors are never asked to make decisions on the law itself. In fact it’s outside of a jurors role. There is a full briefing document giving the details of the law and what very spepcifc things you are be asked to decide. The judge constantly steers the jury on matters of the law, and the barristers for that matter 😳

all the jurors on my case were taking that seriously. They listened to copius instructions from judge on matters of law. They diligently read 3 ring binders of written evidence which we waded through verbally line by line in court. They took deligent notes on evidence to remind themselves later what they’d heard. We as a group discussed many times when one of us was not clear on a point of evidence, or had missed something others heard, or where we interpreted something said differently. We helped each other resolve it or sent questions to judge (which you can do). We deliberated in a very disciplined way listening to each jurors points in turn before even discussing the verdict. We treated each other and the defendants and witnesses with respect

it was a bloody refreshing reminder, frankly, that most people care, they want to do a good job, and as humans we are mostly smart enough to listen and understand no matter our age, education etc. yes, people have different personalities on a jury and sure some of them I’d not wanted to work with in “real “ life or hang out with, but we were all mature and tolerant enough to deal with it, respect each other and mostly respect the law, court (even if we did get all pissed off with time wasting and lack of reimbursement ) I honestly don’t believe that was exceptional, I’ve talked to many people who’ve said same thing.

Your analogy that “If you have a medical problem you don’t have a group of people representative of the population deciding what is wrong with you. ”, is a false one…the jurors are not there to decide what the disease is and the prognosis , they’re there to assesss which side of defence and prosecution truth telling. Validating the story. Just the same as why I as asked to attend every appoint my exh had with psychiatrist for his severe and enduring mental health issues, for 15 years, because the doctor wanted to hear both his patients perspective and the only other observer of the symptoms during the 6 months between appointment. That allowed psychiatrist to determined where truth lay. I didn’t need to be a psychiatrist myself to do that.

you are also not taking into account unconscious bias. We all have it. Even judges. Magistrates (hence why people have right to be heard by their peers in court) Police, barristers, solicitors, CPS . And even the sort of people who’d be willing to train as professional jurors . A jury is randomly selected. Literally 3 seperate machine random generators to actually get onto jury- the last one whilst you are standing in court down to last 15 selected to get to final 12. That way it is best protection for accused to avoid a prevalent unconscious bias of those listen to evidence and determine the truth. With all the training in the world a professional jury would not ever rid themselves of the risk of a prevalent unconscious bias.

it sure aint perfect. Miscarriages will occur, especially in cases of rape for instance, where the idea of professional jurors has often been touted and perhaps the strongest case exists. But that has never been touted on basis of a professional juror knowing more about the law on rape! It has been touted to counter the sadly prevalent unconscious and conscious bias in jurors (and general population) about believing rape victims and a huge tendency for jurors to victim blame etc.

apologies if you have served, and your experience was different in that you found your fellow jurors a bunch of bozzo idiots or prejudice ignoramuses. For me it was the one light in whole process that as hums we want the best for each other generally, want fairness, and are pretty intelligent

Yes I had this in Scotland ten years ago where I called the night before and was told I wasn't needed. I don't understand why it doesn't happen in England. Mind you,you're much more likely to be called in Scotland. In Edinburgh it feels like everyone has been called at some point. According to Google, you have a 95% chance of being called whereas in many English cities it's more like 35%.

I do have to say though, I'm in Scotland and served on a jury last December. No more waiting about to see if you were called. That's all done (or at least it was for the court I had to attend) without any potential jury members in court.

you have to call the court the night before to see if your number is in rotation for the next day. If it is, the court call you first thing, say how long the case is likely to be and when the selection is did to be made. You then get a call mid morning to say if you have been selected and then you need to make your way to the court - I had to be there by 2, so had about 3 hours.

much more efficient than the previous time, as that did involve a lot of sitting around.

OK, I have just looked at this - as I was puzzled about how and why the money you get is so low.

Seems after 10 days you get more... £129 a day, plus travel and parking costs...

I mean, that is still only just a bit more than minimum wage for many, but it's more than the £64 a day being talked about here. It's double...

https://www.gov.uk/jury-service/what-you-can-claim-if-youre-an-employee

What you can claim if you’re an employee

You will not be paid for doing jury service, but you can claim some money back if your earnings are affected. For each day you’re at court, you can usually claim:
Up to £64.95 to help cover your loss of earnings and the cost of any care or childcare outside of your usual arrangements

For the first 10 days of jury service, you can claim up to:
£64.95 a day if you spend more than 4 hours at court
£32.47 a day if you spend 4 hours or less at court

If your jury service lasts longer than 10 working days, the amount you can claim increases. You’ll be able to claim up to:
£129.91 a day if you spend more than 4 hours at court
£64.95 a day if you spend 4 hours or less at court

The cost of travel to and from court
You’ll be told how to claim expenses after your jury service has ended.

Taking time off work
Give a copy of your jury summons to your employer.

Your employer must let you have time off work, but can ask you to delay your jury service if your absence will have a serious effect on their business.

Problems with your employer
If you’re not allowed to take time off work for jury service, you can complain to an employment tribunal.

If you’re sacked because you do jury service you may be able to claim unfair dismissal.

Getting paid during jury service
Your employer can choose whether or not to pay you during your service.
If they do not pay you, you can claim for loss of earnings from the court.

If you get benefits or financial support
Show your jury summons to your benefit office or work coach as soon as you get it.
You’ll continue to get financial support and benefits (such as Universal Credit) for the first 8 weeks. After that, the court will give you a loss of earnings form to give to your benefit office or work coach.

How you travel to court The court will pay
Bus or underground
Cost of the ticket
Train
Cost of the ticket (standard class return fare)
Bicycle
9.6p per mile
Motorcycle
31.4p per mile
Car
31.4p per mile - check if the court will pay for parking
Car - for one other juror as a passenger
4.2p per mile
Car - for each additional passenger
3.2p per mile
Taxi
The fare - ask the court for permission before using a taxi

Food and drink
How much you can claim depends on how many hours you spend in court each day.
Time spent each day The court will pay up to
Up to and including 10 hours a day
£5.71 per day
Over 10 hours a day
£12.17 per day

Hardly lucky.

serving on a jury should not cause financial hardship. People just would rather risk getting into trouble themselves rather than do jury duty if there was no compensation for the expenses they lost. The expenses, as they currently are, as demonstrated on this thread are a joke and a massive barrier to people being able to do jury duty.

and it really woukd affect the outcome of trials - as people would base their decision on how annoyed they were to be there.