Juries: should there be an equal male:female split for sexual assault cases?

[squeaver]

I've just finished jury service. Obviously there are certain things I can't discuss but it was a sexual assault case and I strongly believe the verdict was influenced by the jury having two women and 10 men.

Does anyone know if there is/has been any campaigning on this? Or any research? I can't find anything online.

I would be really happy to share my experience with someone if it could help in any way.

I thought selection was random based on the electoral role. So are fewer women registered to vote? Also - but no evidence to back this up - perhaps women, life style/responsibilities etc, may mean we have more excuses for exemption?

All juries are different, but when I was a juror, it was one of the other women jurors who I wouldn’t want to be on another jury ever again.

Yes it is and there were plenty of women in the “pool” but that was the way the selection worked on the day. And who knows if COVID had an effect etc.

I’m not saying this is what should happen just interested to learn more on the topic.

YES! Why is this not already so?

@UppityPuppity

I thought selection was random based on the electoral role. So are fewer women registered to vote? Also - but no evidence to back this up - perhaps women, life style/responsibilities etc, may mean we have more excuses for exemption?

All juries are different, but when I was a juror, it was one of the other women jurors who I wouldn’t want to be on another jury ever again.

It's pretty hard to get out of jury service these days. Even being a SAHM isn't an excuse, unless you have a tiny baby. I doubt 2-10 is a typical split, but if you toss a coin twelve times you could well get two heads and ten tails.

It's an interesting question, OP. My instinct is against it, otherwise it could be a slippery slope to US-style jury selection. OJ Simpson's lawyers made a similar argument.

My instinct would also be to say no but I can’t deny that a lot of the arguments made by my fellow male jurors came from a place of, at best, ignorance and, at worst, misogyny. And the burden of proof in a he said/she said case just seems impossibly high.

It’s made me think. I don’t know if the fault is with the system, or society. Almost certainly the latter but that can only be fixed by shining a light on it, surely?

Read the Secret Barrister for a synopsis on the problem with juries.

Basically what goes on in the jury deliberation room is totally confidential, not even the sentencing judge knows how/why the jury reaches the decision it does. There are pros and cons to this approach, eg no-one person can be harassed for the decision they made or be got at beforehand. Obversely juries cannot be held to account for the decisions they make and their decision could be based on other things than just the evidence presented and their understanding of the judges summing up/direction .

However, iI think selecting juries based on a certain set of characteristics is just as problematical. Who is to say that juror A (white middle aged woman) is more or less sympathetic/understanding than juror B (young black male). Whilst I appreciate your idea comes from a good place, I think that once we start selecting juries, we start influencing the outcome of a trial before it has started. Prosecutors and defence will soon get wise to the questions to ask to get the juries they want......and some juries will lie in order to be selected/deselected.

I guess all systems are flawed. But gathering evidence/undertaking research is nigh on impossible due to the confidentiality surrounding a jury. All that can be investigated currently is the outcome and sentence.

You can be excused if you are a full time carer for someone with a disability, which is skewed to women.

There are a lot of women with misogynistic views that could affect their decision on a sexual assault case so I don't necessarily think a 50/50 jury would help. Also you start to get like America where jury selection is a massive palaver.
I think jurors should have more direction around rape myths and what is/isn't a valid defence. Also i think judges should have more latitude to prevent certain lines of victim blaming cross examination (e.g. the case recently where the girls underwear was used to imply she was interested in sex with a random stranger).

It's my understanding that the sex distribution of juries doesn't impact outcomes in sexual assault cases. So I would say there doesn't seem to be any need.

I agree with Quentinwinters. A lot of women, even if not misogynistic, want to blame the victim because the don't want to believe it could happen to them

Yes, in some cases a woman would look at a victim and think "that would never be me" whereas a man would look and think "that could be my daughter/sister/wife". Bias occurs in both sexes unfortunately so random selection is the fairest way

This isn't the same, but I think it's a related phenomenon- like the reactions to cases of female teachers sexually abusing teenage boy pupils. The women are appalled, but men think "he got lucky."

The bias can go either way. I did jury service 25yrs ago, it was utterly batshit and I hope I never find myself in the position of being tried by a jury.
But in response to the OPs comment, bias can definitely go either way. The trial involved male violence against a girl (teen), the prosecution didn't in any way prove the charge, but we didn't get a full verdict of not guilty because two women took a hard stance against the alleged attacker. They made it clear that they were zero tolerance against any male violence, but the charge was very specific to a certain act and even they admitted that there was no proof of that certain act, but they still voted guilty.

Up next it will be bame quotas on juries for bame defendants followed by trans jurors for trans defendants.

I sat on a jury in a similar case. My experience convinced me that jury trials are bonkers and dangerous, tbh. I have to say, the more extreme opinions expressed in that room didn't exclusively come from the men, and some of the men (notably the older ones) were much more sympathetic to the victim.

@SusannaSpider if the trial you're describing had taken place more recently I'd have wondered whether we were on the same jury!

@AnjouPear

It worries me that it might be a common experience. So much was wrong about the whole thing though, obviously can't go into details but it was worrying.

I think this is a serious problem, I have known two women excused from jury duty because they themselves had experienced sexual assault. One in advance and one because she was distressed in the courtroom. Think how many women this applies to, removed from the jury pool for trials on sexual assault.

You are therefore selecting from men and the women who haven't been assaulted. Both these groups are going to lack experience to empathise with the victim. Men because they can imagine their lives ruined by a lying women and women giving themselves the credit for avoiding attacks (I would never have worn that, I wouldn't have been walking there alone). victim blaming isn't sex specific, I don't think, and even if the women were sympathetic they will be outnumbered.

I don't think women who have been assaulted should be forced into a triggering position either, so I'm reluctant to say it needs to be 50:50. Trained jurors would perhaps be better?

Yes, I've wondered about trained jurors. Some of my co jurors seemed more worried about the responsibility of potentially sending someone to prison than of reaching the right verdict. Also some of them were, frankly, just not very clever and didn't understand some of the judge's quite basic instructions.

Sorry op, this is a bit of a detour from your question.

I've done jury service and I'm astonished that anyone ever gets found guilty. Most jurors are so reluctant to convict even when the evidence is right there and the excuses laughable (possession of an offensive weapon).

I agree men are likely to have views which are problematic for sexual offences cases - as they may well identify with the defendant and think 'I've done that'.

@NeverTrustaRabbit you have summed up the problems with jury selection perfectly. If you say 50/50 for male/female, what about other characteristics, race being the obvious one? Socio-economic?

Other counties do allow lawyers on both sides to question jurors and object to a certain number being on jury. The problem I’ve alway though with this is people probably always give the answer they expect should be given not what they may in fact think.

This is all so interesting and I completely understand everyone’s viewpoints.

In my case, the only other female juror said to me, after it was all over, “When I saw what the case was, and that there were only two of us, I knew there was no chance of a guilty verdict”.

I didn’t go into the trial with that view but it’s really made me think. These are charges which ARE different to others. Many men (not all, I know) just have no concept that such a thing could actually happen. They can’t begin to imagine it, let alone empathise with a victim.

And the demand, over and over, was “there’s not enough evidence”. If it all comes down to the credibility of one witness over another, there will never be enough evidence will there? So, what do you do?

I don't think it should be a 50/50 spilt I think it should be all women

At least 50/50 yes.

My DDad did jury service many years ago (at least 20 as he died 17 years ago). Obviously he didn’t give a huge amount of detail but he was involved in two cases. One was a woman who had murdered her pimp. The other was a woman who had assaulted a man who tried to act inappropriately with her but following her own history of sexual abuse as a child.

He was deeply affected by both cases. He said if he could have, he would have hugged both women & told them he understood.

Not all men lack understanding. Not all women have empathy.

Multiple studies have shown that female dominated juries are less likely to convict. The reason given in one study was that men are more likely to know how other men behave, and women were more likely to blame the victim and believe rape myths.

''Female-dominated juries less likely to convict in rape cases''
www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-20404525.html

There is a good case for abolishing juries in rape trials;
''Myths about rape are so widely believed by the public that their ability to deliver justice is compromised''
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/nov/21/juries-rape-trials-myths-justice