Anyone here a crown court judge?

[Thinkingaloud85]

I would love to know what you think of juries and how often you agree with jury verdicts.
I did jury service once and while I personally was happy with our verdicts I must confess it didn’t leave me with a huge amount of confidence in the process. Reading some posts on here and other internet forums also makes me question the reasoning abilities of the public in general.
I heard on Any Questions yesterday that there’s some talk of limiting trial by jury to only the most serious cases, to clear the backlog of cases awaiting trial.

I know it’s not the job of a judge to come to a conclusion, but they must form a view, having listened to all the evidence in a case? It would be fascinating to know how often judges and juries are in agreement.

Yaaaawn
Zzzzz

Is this boring thread still a thing

I'm not sure thar would help. The jury I was on covered a wide range of educational abilities, ages and mix of men and women. The most obstructive people to the process were 2 mature professional men who seemed to want to bully everyone into their way of thinking and triedto make evidence fit their agenda. Everyone else regardless of background seemed able to weigh up the evidence in a logical way.

I’m due to do jury service early next year, and I must say, reading this thread is interesting, but somewhat concerning!

Are you implying I’m trolling or something? Why would I? It’s not a very contentious subject? I am genuinely curious! Are you in a position to contribute?

😂 Thank you for playing your part in keeping it going!
Nice to have a couple of posters volunteer to demonstrate some of the expressed concerns about some jurors…

I was once in a coffee shop and a lady on the next table was regaling her friend - very loudly! - with her experience of being on a jury. First it was the charge and the evidence, then actual conversations that happened in the jury room 'one man was a company director, he said he thought abc and xyz'. I was sitting there thinking omg, I can't believe she's happily telling all this to the whole cafe, is she mad?!

But my jaw nearly hit the table when she said 'of course I could tell just by looking at him that he'd done it. As soon as I set eyes on him I knew he was guilty.'

The concept of juries has made me very uneasy ever since!
Although I'm also nervous of the judge only model, the Family Courts show what a shitshow that can be.

I haven't done jury service, but a friend did, and she said it was interesting how poor some people's critical thinking skills were. I

I also remember my mother doing it - she had a fairly straightforward breaking and entering case. One of the key pieces of evidence was, who else would be driving round in a truck with loads of tools in the back at 3am, unless they were up to know good - and realised Dad could be doing that, because he was a farmer, and if the cattle get out in the middle of the night, you have to deal with it, and his Landrover always had all his tools in the back, which would include a crowbar, wire cutters and all sorts - though in Dad's case, not catapults (which are apparently used to hit burglar alarms.)

We have two people at work on jury service at the moment. Two that I know of, at least.

I think that there should be a few screening questions that the bank of potential jurors complete before being selected. They should screen for basic comprehension of evidence and understanding of the role.

I think that having awkward personalities is fair enough, it’s up to the group to manage any bullies.

But being capable of processing the evidence or understanding the role of a juror should be an absolute bare
minimum.

Shame no judges have arrived to comment, though as PP mentioned, it was a long shot.

My jury members were a well-intentioned bunch on the whole, compared to some stories here. But there was definitely some dodgy reasoning, and some agreeing just so we could go home. Although the court usher (the bloke who checked in on us) didn’t help, he was obviously fed up with us deliberating for so long and encouraged us to hurry up and come to a decision.

Aren't judges ineligible for jury service? So while they might have cases where they don't agree with the verdict, they won't know what discussions lead to the decision.

I was just wondering how often they agree with the verdict.

This is the frightening thing. How many people could be given 100% evidence but decide "oh but look he's a nice guy, he has manners/looks kind" Anyone can put on a good show to mask their true personalities particularly narcs. It is quite worrying. I do think that jurors are chosen though and not as random as we may be led to believe. Some people have been called upon 2/3 times in their life while others (me) have never been called.

I can’t sleep so I’ve name changed for this thread. Been a very long time poster and lurker. I’m happy to ask DH anything about trials if people have specific questions?

I know that sometimes he has disagreed with the decision the jury make but in his mind it is the justice system and he’s at peace with that.

A couple of times he has had to re explain things to a jury and gets a bit twitchy when they ask the same questions over and over again because it shows they don’t actually understand what it is they’re deciding on? Also it’s stressful for everyone as the questions have to be asked in open court so everyone is recalled via tannoy and it’s not because they’ve got a decision?

I remember one case where he had the foreperson ask essentially the same question 5 x in 2 days and then he just had to say “if it is not X you have to find them guilty of Y, if X is the answer then you must find them not guilty of Y manslaughter is not a option, you either convict of murder or not’ I’ll try and get him to explain it to me in more normal terms! I understand basics but he couldn’t do my job of being a surgeon and I definitely couldn’t do his job!!

I wish sometimes we were still in Australia because the judge does a really really thorough job of summing up all the details for the jury after the closing arguments and it’s really easy for the jury to understand. It can take days for the judge to do all the summing up.

Oh yes, that would be interesting.

When my husband did jury duty, 3 jurors spoke almost no English at all and another juror ended up translating for them.

I think DH agrees with the verdict 7/10 but respects their decision all the time

Does the UK not have "judge alone" trials?

So actually, there should be 0 posts on the thread.

It’s interesting the court process and experience seems to be the only thing left we are not allowed to discuss critically in detail. It’s no longer taboo to criticise religion, or royalty, or the patriarchy, or any institution I can think of. But the legal system uses law to protect itself. What goes on in a jury room or a family court or a Cafcass meeting can never be discussed, except privately at great expense with a professional.

I swear if there was a jury of parents in the family court I’d have had an entirely different outcome. I think everyday people have more heart than judges appear to. Though I appreciate that makes them poor at convincing in some cases.

I have done jury servixe twice and I can tell you why the process is so slow.
The amount of fartarsing about bis legendary. The jury are sent out, legal arguments, jury back in, sent out again, more stuff that the jury aren't allowed to hear. People who have lived and worked in the country for 30 years suddenly needing an interpreter and on and on it goes.
I dont think one judge should be able to decide someone's innocence or guilt, I wouldn't trust them to be fair and honest

My friend is a prosecution barrister in sex cases. She has been doing it maybe 30 years and says that in all that time there was only one trial where she thought the jury made the wrong decision, and it haunted her for a long time.

I did jury service once, a slightly different experience to PP. The jury all seemed a reasonably intelligent bunch, but the evidence presented by the prosecution was crap.
The case was GBH, the defendant admitted he'd hit the victim, but the case was whether he'd also pushed him to the ground and stamped on him. We all thought he probably had done it, but there was no evidence. No photos of injuries, no statements from medical professionals, no other witnesses, just he said vs he said. So without evidence, we had to find him not guilty.

That's what's good about the Scottish system, that you slso have the option of not proven alongside guilty/not guilty.

I have had two friends who were victims of rape and sexual assault. Both went to jury trial and despite a huge amount of forensic evidence in one case both of the perpetrators defendants were found not guilty. How anyone could have listened to all that and decided not guilty is beyond me! However I don’t believe trial by judge will produce any better outcomes for victims because they will all have their own bias and beliefs as well.

However I don’t believe trial by judge will produce any better outcomes for victims because they will all have their own bias and beliefs as well.

Thry will, but there's much more awareness of unconscious bias these days, and they are trained to consider all the evidence and arguments, which jurors may have no experience of.

I understand the Scots are looking at getting rid of not proven verdicts. In your opinion what does it add. It’s basically “we think he did it but can’t prove it so co conviction” . There is no penalty so how does it help?