Lammy to remove Juries for most cases

[Bumblebee72]

It being reported by the Times that Lammy is going to remove the right to choose a jury for all but a few cases. This is a shocking role back of British rights.

And they say we need to worry about Reform........

Do you not remember Diplock Courts?

I don't remember anything like the sense of outrage back then

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplock_court

I think because we sent the common law system to the US/Canada/Aistralia we kind of assume that all countries follow it because it is what we see in the majority of media.

but it isn’t Germany does have then, France only for the most serious and Italy is more hybrid.

like it or not it is a huge drain and there are plenty of models where they aren’t used

The article in The Times is confusing. In some places it says it would be decided by a judge alone, in at least two other places it says a judge plus two lay magistrates.

The BBC News article says Sir Brian Leveson recommends either a judge alone or a judge plus two magistrates. I think that’s a significant difference.

A thought that occurs to me with this is prior convictions.

On the one hand, I think it is good that Juries are not told of priors. Because it ensures a fair trial on the specific charges.

On the other hand, it does also mean many repeat offenders "beat the rap", and some may go on to offend again.

If there is no Jury, does that mean that whoever is Judging knows about priors ?

The sheer logistics of getting a jury, witnesses for defence and prosecution, barristers, solicitors, the defendant/s and all court employees in the same room at the same time is mind boggling

Very often, the judges are there, but trials are being delayed because police officers are unavailable, social, medical and psychatric reports are not available, juries are hard to obtain and the trials are adjourned

I think the fact that laypeople don't understand the core principles of the law (and certainly not anything more complex) is one of the reasons people are open to reconsidering juries in the first place.

That was me. And the quickest way to repeal a bad law is have juries repeatedly find people not guilty.

It's one of the reasons the death penalty is history.

There are also plenty of areas of law that don’t - family/housing/immigration

areas of criminal that are magistrate as well

Would you have the right to challenge who the Judge is? The senior professional pool is pretty small. What if the judge is in the same Squash club as the senior police officer who is giving evidence against you? Could you challenge that? To who? I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I was being wrongly convicted I wouldn't be in the best place to trust the appointees of the state.

I was astounded when I did jury service that we weren’t IQ tested! The logic and intelligence levels of some of the people I served with was questionable (they may well have thought the same about me), and I couldn’t believe we were entrusted with making a decision on the rest of somebody’s life. It seems wiser to have a professionally trained panel make these decisions instead.

I would trust them more than I would trust some old bloke in a wig and yes I have personal experience

Surely if juries are removed it won't be the old bloke in the wig making the decisions, it will be some sort of specialist jury?

The press are reporting it will be “a judge” not an expert panel.

Yes.

Yes that would be a conflict.

Expert medical witnesses who once worked for 10 minutes in the same hospital as a defendant trusts doctor are ‘conflicted’ and often step down. So this definitely would be a conflict.

I'm not sure Lammy has the confidence in that statement that you do!

It shouldn't be down to just one person imo

That’s a particularly verbose post - sentence!

I’m surprised this has come from the disastrous Labour Party. They love state control and telling people they have to do something, and they have to do it for as long as it takes - even if it impacts their lives negatively. Some people lose much income and even their jobs, in a mandatory long trial.

As I said above I think rape and murder trials should also be included for that reason. Strange they’re not.

And the more obvious reason is that many (many) people are stupid and or biased. I wouldn’t want my life in the hands of some of the people I know who’ve done jury service. Terrifying.

I work in this area, and I know many Judges, many of whom haven’t the first idea about their own biases, privilege etc. Juries generally give the public confidence that many minds are better than just one.

Having done Jury service, I would be happier if it were a professional Jury. It could be composed of trained laypeople, similar to how magistrates operate now.
I wouldn't trust half the people I was on Jury service with to make a decision based on what evidence they were presented with, as I heard comments like "well, he looks guilty". "Can we just vote so I can get off early?" "He deserved it" " I can't remember half of what was said. I was falling asleep, it was so boring". "Well, he does look older than his age"
This wasn't even a minor issue; it was regarding the SA of a minor.

If there was a smaller pool of Jurers, barristers could then learn how to play the jurer part of the system now is that they just don't know much about them. I was involved in a data project that looked making financial claims a number of years ago - you could determine which court it was best to submit different type of claims for the best results as judges behaved differently. We increased the judgements rates quite considerably by directly traffic to the right judges - in a world of AI that could have been even more powerful.

A lawyer wrote

https://corkerbinning.com/lord-devlins-lamp-of-freedom-covid19-jury-trial/

“The first object of any tyrant in Whitehall would be to make parliament utterly subservient to his will; and the next to overthrow or diminish the right to trial by jury, for no tyrant could afford to leave a subject’s freedom in the hands of 12 of his countrymen.”

How about the right of a lay person (potential juror) not to have their life / income ruined by a mandatory state order (to be a juror on a trial which could last weeks / months)?

How about the right of a defendant not to be judged by jurors who are likely majority quite stupid and / or biased?

The Labour Party aren’t tyrants. Just idiotic socialists for the main part. However on this particular decision, I agree. I’m surprised given that mandatory state participation is usually a socialist endeavour. Lammy and Starmer being ex barristers would know more than most about the legal world, one assumes. Though I believe Lammy has flip flopped on this issue. Unsurprising.

Black Belt Barrister

Thanks very much. I knew of the racial bias in the system as a whole, but not with Judges.