Scotland: Jury less rape trials.

Not sure that anyone will care but this is a press release from Rape Crisis Scotland https://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/news/news/our-response-to-the-stage-one-report-on-the-victims-witnesses-and-justice-reform-bill/

One of the issue with seeing the solution to low conviction rates being to change the culture is that getting more rape convictions will be one of the best ways to change the culture. Rape myths flourish to a significant extent because so many men get away with rape and other sexual assaults.

One flaw I did find with the jury was by the time we reached the verdict day (a week and a half in) most people were desperate to end the jury duty as they had plans next week etc so I think a lot of people would favour just coming to a quick agreement rather than having long debates. That's not really what you want for important decisions

I’m not against juryless trial in general. I don’t think we have any evidence that the jury system is a particularly good one, we are just left with it because it’s what we’ve done historically. Most of our criminal trials are in magistrate’s courts without a jury and they aren’t a seething hotbed of false guilty verdicts.

But rape cases need far greater resources and real will put in at the investigation stage. As the Beira’s place statement indicated, that is where rape victims are really let down. The budget for investigating sexual crimes is way below adequate and the techniques & standards of many police forces and individual officers are appalling.

In an attempt to get this topic back on track. ( Given I'm a derailer )
Do you think Juryless trials will be more or less fair overall?
Better or worse?
Why?

I don't think that's how it works sorry.
The police have a duty to investigate crime and pass their findings on to the prosecution service if they believe the evidence is strong enough. Both the police and prosecution ignore the presumed innocent, but for everyone else presumed innocent is the default legal position.
Presumed innocent simply does not apply to those two agencies because of their purpose. But they still have to follow due process.

To give an example of how strong this presumption is. In America during jury selection Voir dire one defense tactic to disqualify a juror the defense didn't like the look of used to be to ask "Is my client guily or innocent in you opinion?" It was a sort of trick question. Any answer other than "innocent" was sufficient grounds to have that juror disqualified. What might sound like a reasonable answer e.g. "I don't know I havn't heard any evidence yet." showed the juror didn't presume innocence, and that was grounds for disqualification.
I think they knocked this tactic on the head after a while, I think it was sailing a bit too close to the wind, but it illustrates the point. Presumed innocent is a cornerstone of the most legal processes. ( nb : excludes HMRC )

It made me realise, rather naively that there are a number of sex offenders in our society and they must end up sitting of jury’s too.

Yes a worrying thought.

But in fact that is the flaw in the jury system. Even assuming the court part if unbiased and professionally presented, who the jury are is total chance.

People come with their own prejudices and history.

I was recently in the jury on a rape trial in Scotland and only a few people voted not proven and one of them was a woman so it wasn't just men. We found the man guilty majority for all 13 charges a few of which included rape so I can confirm the outcomes aren't always that the accused are not found guilty. It is very hard for a jury to prove these given there is always very little evidence as it happens behind closed doors. It's crap that so many must get away with it but I can understand there is also a chance some women could be lying and equally innocent people are charged. I'd hope not given all you need to go through but who knows.

I totally agree. I also sat on a rape trial and all the men in the jury wanted to go for a not guilty vote. I found that quite shocking. I also thought the judge (male) was quite regretful about accepting a guilty verdict. I found the whole experience quite eye opening.

@IwantToRetire to be honest the upsetting part was not listening to the women recount their story’s as they were so similar to what I’ve heard from relatives and friends over the years. The upsetting part was listening to the men on that jury and being pretty sure at least three of them felt quite a lot of empathy for the accused and none for the victims. It made me realise, rather naively that there are a number of sex offenders in our society and they must end up sitting of jury’s too.

So sorry OrangeCrusher - I have heard other women talk about the trauma of being on the jury of a rape trial.

that jury’s need intensive training on rape myths and what consent actually means

I think this was also proposed by some women's groups and in fact have found 2 petitions about this, one dating as far back as 2018.

https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/209573

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/641404

(Honestly all this work, and side stepping, and pretending not to mind, because men just wont change. )

Actually, presumed innocence doesn’t 100% mean you are innocent. It means we think you’re possibly guilty and have evidence to prove it and we’re going to try and use that evidence to convict you. Surely that’s the threshold the crown prosecution and Procurator Fiscal have to meet otherwise you can’t face trial.

I live in Scotland and sat on the jury of a man accused of multiple rapes, sexual assaults and other charges such as voyeurism of three women he had been in relationships with. He was found guilty of the minor charges only because there was photographic evidence (although, several men in the jury tried to explain this away). I found it quite a traumatic experience, not because I had to listen to three women describe what had happened to them and discuss photos of themselves unconscious and naked but, because of the eight men on that jury. After the trial I came to 3 conclusions -

1. men should not sit on rape trials. I can’t repeat what was said but there were at least three men who were seriously worrying and the other men followed the lead of these guys like sheep.
2. Jury trials are not appropriate for rape trials because you can’t exclude men.
3. that jury’s need intensive training on rape myths and what consent actually means. Some of the things I heard other male members of that jury say were outrageous.

This is the paper the decision was based on https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/Media_704445_smxx.pdf

I think it is Holland where this already happens and France was / is intending to do the same.

As said on the earlier threads about this, the arguement for juryless trials for rape came from women support service for women who had been raped.

It was / is hard enough to get rape cases to court, but all too often tactics such as smearing the woman concerned as being sexually premissive, using information taken from her phone, but worse still the juries - ie ordinary members of the public including women, tend not to believe women. Or as research has shown even when the jury thinks it was rape they do not think a man should have his life and career ruined as being a convicted rapist. (Not forgetting that Scotland thinks men up to 25 cant comprehend that it is wrong!)

So I have no idea how well or how bad Scotland is implementing it, but its purpose was to try and increase convictions for rape by cutting out the whole courtroom saga of dragging the victims name through the mud, while implying some poor man just misread the signals.

Supposedly a Judge would just deal with "facts" and not use their sexist attitudes towards women as a way of deciding whether rape did happen.

Not proven always sounded to me like "we know the bugger's guilty, we just can't prove it."
It sort of implies that the presumption of innocence doesn't apply in Scotland. Most legal systems in the western world are based around this presumption of innocence. Until guilt is proven you are innocent.
A wishy washy middle of the road no one's sure what it means "not proven" seems to undermine this presumption of innocence.

Here's a historical reference to the prinicpal of presumed innocence -
The American system, grounded in the British Common Law, has long erred on the side of protecting innocence. Thus we presume an accused person's innocence until they are proven guilty. As the preeminent English jurist William Blackstone wrote," Better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer." This principle can also be found in religious texts and in the writings of the American Founders. Benjamin Franklin went further arguing "it is better a hundred guilty persons should escape than one innocent person should suffer."

Will this also be a Trojan Horse through which to sneak a "more inclusive definition" of rape, I wonder? I'd be on the lookout for that as well.

Bampots are running the country.

Thank you for this thread Arabella - I've not been clear on the implications of this will be so seeing all the information collated is very helpful.

I've just realised that hearing anything to do with 'Scotland' and 'Women's rights' makes me instantly suspicious and nervously wary.