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.

Friend who did Jury duty, another SA case, also came away disillusioned. One guy who announced the guy was not guilty and refused to engage further getting more and more annoyed as other people discussed. Lots of misconceptions about rape, "why didn't she scream and run away", "she was drunk so was probably leading him on", "she is a single mum so used to sleeping around." He said it was really horrible and he pushed back but people didn't want to know.

Until people have more understanding (and I include judges in this) I don't trust it.

I have a friend who was stitched upby the police. Procedures weren't correctly applied, witnesses were not interviewed. At the initial court hearing the prosecuting person read out the charge sheet and lied about one of the charges, even the "victim" never alleged that this happened.
Luckily my DF had a shit hot defence barrister who picked off the "witnesses" one by one and absolutely destroyed the police. The jury saw through the lies and my DF was exonerated. I have absolutely no doubt that if this had been a judge only trial, my DF would have spent years in jail and probably would still be there now

I’ve never been to a trial but have often thought along the lines of some posts here. My faith in a random sample of the public being entirely reasonable and sensible individuals capable of grasping sometimes quite complicated legal arguments and not allowing their own prejudices and life experience to colour their decisions is unfortunately not high.

Yes, I agree with all of this and recommend watching those shows. Many people were unable to put aside their prejudices and seemed to completely forget that their job was to listen only to the evidence and decide on the basis of the evidence presented. They just couldn’t or wouldn’t do it. And there were a couple of load-mouths/bullies who picked on the weaker links and just refused to show even a millimetre of open-mindedness.There is also an Australian version which I watched too – interestingly it was a similar experience.

The jury I was on was pretty conscientious. It seemed to us highly likely that the defendant in our case was up to something, but the problem was that the evidence just didn't show she had done what she was accused of. I had the distinct impression the judge felt the same. We therefore reluctantly acquitted and I am sure that was the right verdict on that charge.

The prosecuting barrister, however, was absolutely furious. If looks could kill, our chair would have been struck dead. I suspect he went out saying we were thick as mince, but honestly he should have seen for himself that the evidence was inadequate.

Lol. A judge is never going to come on here and discuss this.

Half the general public are several sandwiches short of a picnic.

Yeah. It should be people of a mix of educational levels, professions, ages, races etc. I know it's random but it would be weird if everyone was a white male dentist who votes Tory in their 60s. Though I guess maybe if that's the main demographic of the area in which it happened?

I thought it used to be only home owners that were allowed to do it. Also can people who don't work and only claim benefits do it?

I’ve name changed for this. Just to stick up for the magistrates who seem to be getting a bit of a bad press on this thread.

I am a magistrate and have a law degree (although I never trained to practice). Many other magistrates I know are retired solicitors or had/have senior careers in professional industries. They are not volunteers in the same way you might think of charity shop workers or someone running the church coffee morning. We are required to do several days of mandatory training every year - to keep up to date with new legislation and sentencing guidelines. Some of the magistrates I sit with have been on the bench for 20 or 30 years and are incredibly knowledgeable about the law. Sometimes more so than the junior legal advisors!

I’m on the fence about juries. I can absolutely see the flaws in the current system. But I worry that judge-only trials for the most serious offences would confer too much power on one individual. And we all know how that story goes.

I would prefer to see a reform of the jury system. Maybe introducing a minimum standard for educational qualifications, or allowing a legal advisor in the room with them as already happens with magistrates.

@PeonyBulb You do know that the court clerk is a legal advisor who has a law degree and LPC don’t you?

No, but former court reporter - so I hope this gives me an experienced bystanders view. It’s important to say, no system is perfect.

I have the utmost respect for magistrates and stipes (stipendiary judges who can sit alone). They are exceptionally skilled, make sound judgments and I have long thought greater powers should be given to them. I have seen too many mid range crimes escalated to crown that become protracted, extend the impact on victims for months (or years), can tie up jury members for months and last of all, are really expensive.

Having said that, a jury trial is a good and reasonable principle for society that generally (not always) delivers just accountability.

DH has confirmed that 99% of the time he agrees however there are exceptions. In some of those cases he has asked the defence if they’d like to present a ‘no case to answer defence’ and on 11 occasions in a 30 year career he has declared the defendant has no case to answer and dismissed the jury

Also he said there are certain phrases that mean a lot in the trial. Such as ‘we wish to come off record as acting for the defendant because we are professionally embarrassed’ which means ‘my client has told me that they did it but is insisting on going on the stand and lying. Or ‘my instructions are’ which can mean ‘I’ve given advice on this matter and my client is still insisting that’s what happened, we don’t believe them but this is argument they want me to put forward. In each case everyone legal will know what that means and will probably serve no case to answer applications or absolutely destroy them in cross examination.

Obviously if they are professionally embarrassed then the entire trial stops and jury is discharged

I have a friend who's a barrister and in recent years a judge, and he was saying some time ago that the jury system has big problems.
The main one is that juries are skewed because so many people cannot afford to do it: Employers are not obliged to pay your salary while you serve, but the allowance for loss of earnings and childcare is only £130 a day for a long trial (less for a short one) i.e. equivalent to an annual salary of about £28,700. The median salary in the UK is £39,000 so more than half of the working population would be financially disadvantaged by serving on a jury, and find plausible reasons to be excused.
Parents can also find it difficult to find childcare at short notice to cover the time they need to be travelling and attending court every day on a long trial - so they often get excused.
So rather than being a random selection of a cross section of society, juries are usually skewed towards people who have no children at home and either low-paid, unemployed or retired. The biases that the 12-random-citizens process was supposed to overcome are not addressed.
There is also a problem with running a long technical trial if the people most likely to understand the evidence (educated professionals) have been excused.

I had 2 cases in court, one I was member of jury & was very cut & dried so easy guilty verdict. 2nd case the defendant was just out of prison, charged with armed robbery. It seemed clear to me that he’d been paid by victims to do it.
I was elected foreman, throughout deliberations racism classism & bullying persisted although I did my best to shoot it down.
We started with 9/3 not guilty but bullies & one self employed man won as it was end of 2 week stint on Friday & everyone wanted to go home.
Reluctantly I agreed to go with majority but stepped down as fore & refused to deliver verdict in the feeble hope judge might ask why.
No chance he kept nodding off himself & clearly wanted to go home.
6 of us were meant to meet in pub after for debrief. 2 young lads one of which owed me £20 whilst waiting for expenses didn’t show & the 2 more mature ladies who turned up for one declared they thought they made a mistake.
still haunts me to this day that I allowed my self to be bullied by 11 people I hardly knew.
Whole system is skewed but hell of a lot of hanging about wasting time too