End of juries but for the most serious cases - end of a historical right?

[mids2019]

History GCSE: The Jury - BBC Teach https://share.google/8pIFUsLZqABANYA

Since the magna carta I have always thought trial by jury though not a constitutional right was something enshrined within our legal system. Is getting rid of juries for a lot of cases a good cost saving measure or an undermining of rights as citizens?

A lot of other options were recommended by the Leveson Review, and even more are being tried out like Fast Track Courts for the simpler cases that would likely get swept up in this. That the recommendation focused on by the government and even more by the media is reducing trials by juries is telling.

Also, the reason given for this recommendation isn't that'll save money - it's to cut the backlog. It's about victims, witnesses, and defendants waiting 2-4 years for trials.

Juries aren't the main cause of the backlog. It's the lack of court rooms (Tories closed a lot of court houses), lack of judges, and lack of barristers (which is why recommendations include the Government adopts a matched pupillage scheme). Even increasing sitting days, as has happened, isn't going to work without those. It's also the lack of court staff to get all this done, to the point that there is discussion in some regions to redefine 'non-mobile grade' to mean 'we can make you move for business reasons for X days a year.'.

It isn’t a mix of people though. Retired people and students are usually over represented because lots of working people defer, appeal to be released etc.

Working isn't a reason to get out of jury service, and the most common reason I've seen to appeal to be released has been ill health - more common with retirees.

While the news often reports that it's to be before just a judge, the recommendation is for some either-or offences to be heard by judge with two magistrates, as already done for appeals. Magistrates are all volunteers, far more of them are retirees compared to jurors, and we have a national shortage of magistrates just as we have of barristers and judges.

Magistrates also generally booked for one day at a time, at least at Crown Court where they're usually in one day a week max IME- if we're going to be having them on multi-day trials, yeah, it's probably going to be all retirees because while they are committed to 13-30 days a year (the recommendation is for Crown Courts to sit 113k days a year), unlike jurors they can't be compelled so Magistrates who work are less likely to take multiple days off. Magistrates can stop at any point since they're volunteers.

Anything that can be said about quality of jurors can also be said about judges, barristers who can sit as Recorders, and those magistrates. If you want to see biased, jaded opinions, someone who has sat on a few dozen rape trials is a strong candidate.

I've worked with a lot of juries and judiciary, and I'll lean towards juries.

I agree. Average Joe (or Jane) is not very bright, and a lot of people with the intellect to serve properly are probably in jobs that make them exempt for work related reasons

There seem to be a lot of posts dismissive of the abilities of jurors but isn't the point that they are chosen exactly because they aren't immersed in the legal system and in an imperfect world an attempt to get a unbiased judgment?

Maybe I'm wrong but there may a move to remove the working class from the legal system (i.e. a section of jurors) when in reality a lot of defendents will be working class?

Often people seem on here to think people who simply disagree with them politically "lack intelligence and critical thinking"....

I can see juries aren't ideal for complex fraud cases. Even lawyers struggle through those! But some of the cases being brought on freedom of speech issues have only been won because a jury shows the common sense that was up until then lacking. Shaun OSullivan being a recent example where he was wrongly accused of Islamophobia and a jury threw it out pretty sharpish.

Exactly.

It’s got nothing to do with politics for me. I rarely discuss it as it’s one of my banned topics.
You only have to read MN daily to see the absolute batshit opinions and behaviour of a lot of people, over even very mundane things.
When you think that a few of those people might be sprinkled in a panel of jurors, it’s worrying.

I'm surprised so many are against it with the amount of threads that appear on here moaning about doing jury service, or is trial by jury only a good thing if it's someone else on the jury.

The general public tend to be mostly morons

I’m shocked and disappointed in the amount of ‘people are stupid’ answers on here. Disagreement and different perspectives are more representative of society as a whole than one person. We learned that in this country many years ago and this seems like a step backwards. I am fully against.

My friend was a juror on a child sex abuse case, she has never recovered from hearing what took place. They found him guilty and were then told he had done this many times and been convicted many times. It made her feel more ill. Why subject the general public to that?

I am half way through The Crime Agents Podcast on When Justice Fails, Why Are Rapists Getting Away With It? It is done with Neil Basu, former head of UK counter terrorism and Andy Hughes who is an award winning investigative journalist specifically in crime. It is a very interesting listen. One comment in the podcast was a rapist was found not guilty because he was good looking and who wouldn't want to have sex with him? Also that if they get a woman heavy jury then the rapist is likely to walk based on I would have screamed, fought more etc.

The whole series is a very interesting look at crime. I think the general public are easily led by very sophisticated solicitors. I do think a lot of cases shouldn't have juries.

That's your own slant on their opinions. To them, your opinions may be the batshit ones. That's why having a good cross section of society in a jury is so important?

Using Mumsnet as an example, I can’t even begin to count the number of times posters have asked questions which have already been answered in the opening post. The level of reading comprehension is absolutely abysmal at times and if someone can’t read and understand a couple of paragraphs, how on earth will they follow a trial. When you add some of the utterly ridiculous and semi illiterate responses, I’m not sure trial by jury would be particularly appealing.

When i read about some of the misogyny amongst judges in family court, the changes concerns me in relation to rape and sexual assault trials, however whether that will be worse than the appallingly low rape conviction rate under the current system, who knows.

I was on a jury panel. Most people don't think critically about what they see and are told. That isn't a class or education issue, it's just a fact. I was concerned about the lack of interrogation of the evidence. My personality is the type where I won't sit back when things aren't going right and my job requires interrogation of evidence so I'll be honest and say I fell into a leader role within the discussions and the decision fell the way I thought it should - it did require a lot of discussion but I was very sure I had the most accurate interpretation of the evidence. Obviously I trust my own judgement as far as that goes but it highlighted how a persuasive personality can influence a jury's decision and most people in the group either don't care enough or don't feel confident enough in their positions to argue their case to the end. Personally from what I observed I would rather have a judge decide if I'm guilty or not than a jury.

You can already go to court with out a jury - anything with a likely sentence of less than a year is heard in a magistrate’s court. You are still judged by your peers though, as magistrates are volunteers so count as general public.

From the BBC article this would be like magistrates plus, so can fill the gap between 1 and 5 years. But there aren’t details on how it would run and who would judge (decide guilt) the case.

(Crazy language we have - the a judge doesn’t judge but presides over the trail, the jury do the judging!)

If we keep with the jury system, then a victim of violent crime today (assuming anyone is caught) then the trial will be in 3 or 4 years time.

There is currently a backlog of around 80,000.

In 2011, the backlog was approx 44,000

This backlog has built up over years of Austerity and the underfunding of criminal case barristers.

Fixing the backlog and keeping the jury system will require huge spending increases.

Who wants to pay the extra taxes for this?

Magistrates aren't representative of the general public though! Only a very select group people has the the time and inclination to volunteer as a Magistrate. Who wants volunteer to judge people?!

Magistrates are way more concerning people to be sitting in judgement than juries.

We already have cases that don’t have juries; the justice of the peace.
Less serious cases heard in a Justice of the Peace court don’t have juries, they just have the JP or a panel of JPs.

For me it’s not about class or political opinions, it’s that the way it’s set up means we don’t get a representation of society especially for longer cases because we don’t pay jurors properly. I’m fortunate that my work pay full salary during jury service but many don’t and the govt pay is much lower than salaries. Or childcare costs aren’t covered which invariably disadvantages women.

I’d like to see those changes made so that when we have a trial with a jury it’s a fair representation of society.

But they already do, and it’s been working fine since we’re not all protesting in the street about it.

It is a dreadful attack on our historic rights under the constitution. It has stood for centuries, yet some self serving politicians who will be forgotten in a few years think they can undermine our rights? Dear god! Remember, juries have an historic right to strike down legislation which is seen as unjust and oppressive, that will vanish with the abolition of jury service, instead cases will be decided by fully paid up members of the establishment and we all know that they have the interests of the ordinary property heart

Word for word this was my experience as a juror. I vowed that were I ever falsely accused of a crime I’d ask not to have a jury. It’s a personality contest from what I can see. My co-jurors made snap judgements based on how likeable the defendant was and were prepared not to discuss the evidence at all.

But is it more worrying than the alternative? One person deciding, with one person’s biases and blind spots.

Also often a decision turns on what is reasonable. A lot of legitimacy of the system springs from the fact that is a social consensus decision, not an elite or official view.

But we already have cases without juries. Loads of them. For centuries. Have you been protesting that?

About time.