Juries: should there be an equal male:female split for sexual assault cases?

The idea of removing women (and men) who have been sexually assaulted is bonkers though.

They don't remove women who have been sexually assaulted. I think you have misunderstood a previous posters comments about women requesting to be excused from jury service on the grounds that their history of sexual assault would make the experience too distressing for them.

Whilst it would be better, in fact they call up a random group, far more than the 12 they need for each slot, then people ask to be let off serving - I suspect more women asked to be excused due to childcare reasons.

*evaluate the arguments, that should say, not accept.

I used to be in favour of jury service until I actually watched a court case and was genuinely shocked at the verdict.

I don't think juries are capable of weighing up evidence and truly understanding the concept of 'beyond reasonable doubt'.

I'd like to see juries abolished and judges trained in evaluating evidence to give their verdict. I would also like to see reasons presented for the verdict, so that you can see why a verdict was reached and can be challenged if necessary.

Sorry OP, this doesn't really address your question. My view is that juries are too susceptible to outside influences (eg what they've seen on TV or read in the papers) and not capable of putting aside their own feelings to rationally accept the arguments. I think this applies to men and women.

For instance it's been proven that a man with a 'baby face' is more likely to be found innocent than a man with sharper features.

As long as we have jury service I believe we are going to have very dubious decisions made as a matter of course.

Women can just as judgey about other women as men can. In many cases they can be worse.

Unlike others on this thread, my experience of Jury Service did give me confidence in the system. We had a historic CSA case which as you can imagine is one of the most difficult because hard evidence is generally long-gone. I remain confident that our decision to convict was the right one.

The attempted rape case the previous week (in which I did not sit) also resulted in a conviction. Attempted rape, like attempted murder is difficult to prove because the prosecution has to show how far the defendant intended to go. Again the defendant was convicted on all charges.

I sadly dont think it would matter. Ive read too many threads on here filled with female apologists for rapists and abusers.

Are you objecting to the suggestion that jurors should be objective?

And I've what the rest of your original post is supposed to mean in relation to anything I said.

Oh sorry I must have misread.

But I've had a look- you said this I think?

'A juror should not be empathising with the victim or basing their decision on their own experiences'

That's what my post was about.

I quoted someone who said juries should empathise with the victim. I said no they shouldn't. I never said anything about weeding anyone out.

As for the rest of your post- why are you addressing those posts at me?

I've watched a jury closely in a courtroom. When the verdict came back the males looked more upset than the females.

As defence counsel we want women on the jury as they generally in sex assault cases are the harshest critics of the female victims.

Men tend to be more sympathetic to women

Miss Barbary they don't filter out the people who empathise with the accused!

Also the idea that having been sexually assaulted (pretty much all women) means that you are incapable of being impartial sounds pretty misogynistic to me.

Do they remove people who have been burgled from those juries?

A male friend many years ago sat on a jury for a serious sexual assault. He ended up needing therapy afterwards for PTSD as he found the entire thing so traumatic (he'd had a very sheltered life and zero idea such things happened). Obviously I don't know the details but I do know some of the truama he struggled with just being on the jury wasnt helped by some attitudes of the women there, when we discussed it, I remember he couldn't understand why comments kept being made about how attractive the man was (so he couldn't possibly have done it) and the woman ugly (so couldn't possibly be a victim).

I know in my dealings regarding things I've gone through relating to assault I've had some dreadful things said to me by women as well as men, sometimes women have been worse.

You are therefore selecting from men and the women who haven't been assaulted. Both these groups are going to lack experience to empathise with the victim

A juror should not be empathising with the victim or basing their decision on their own experiences.

Well exactly, and men without a conviction are hardly going to admit it, are they.

I've heard (but can't remember where or when) that woman can be less likely to find guilty than men on juries.

The idea of removing women (and men) who have been sexually assaulted is bonkers though. That's most of us! And they aren't asking the men if they've sexually assaulted anyone I assume...

Multiple studies have shown that female dominated juries are less likely to convict. The reason given in one study was that men are more likely to know how other men behave, and women were more likely to blame the victim and believe rape myths.

''Female-dominated juries less likely to convict in rape cases''
www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20404525.html

There is a good case for abolishing juries in rape trials;
''Myths about rape are so widely believed by the public that their ability to deliver justice is compromised''
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/21/juries-rape-trials-myths-justice

At least 50/50 yes.

My DDad did jury service many years ago (at least 20 as he died 17 years ago). Obviously he didn’t give a huge amount of detail but he was involved in two cases. One was a woman who had murdered her pimp. The other was a woman who had assaulted a man who tried to act inappropriately with her but following her own history of sexual abuse as a child.

He was deeply affected by both cases. He said if he could have, he would have hugged both women & told them he understood.

Not all men lack understanding. Not all women have empathy.

I don't think it should be a 50/50 spilt I think it should be all women

@NeverTrustaRabbit you have summed up the problems with jury selection perfectly. If you say 50/50 for male/female, what about other characteristics, race being the obvious one? Socio-economic?

Other counties do allow lawyers on both sides to question jurors and object to a certain number being on jury. The problem I’ve alway though with this is people probably always give the answer they expect should be given not what they may in fact think.

I've done jury service and I'm astonished that anyone ever gets found guilty. Most jurors are so reluctant to convict even when the evidence is right there and the excuses laughable (possession of an offensive weapon).

I agree men are likely to have views which are problematic for sexual offences cases - as they may well identify with the defendant and think 'I've done that'.

Yes, I've wondered about trained jurors. Some of my co jurors seemed more worried about the responsibility of potentially sending someone to prison than of reaching the right verdict. Also some of them were, frankly, just not very clever and didn't understand some of the judge's quite basic instructions.

Sorry op, this is a bit of a detour from your question.