Describe trial by jury within the English legal system. How effective is trial by jury? Consider any alternatives and suggest improvements.
Jay Furlong
Describe trial by jury within the English legal system. How effective is trial by jury? Consider any alternatives and suggest improvements.
The jury has been a long established part of the English legal system for centuries. It consists of 12 people who represent a cross section of the public. They hear a case and then decide a verdict, based on fact, not law. Some people think that trial by jury is more fair than a judge because the jury is independent and therefore could not be influenced by the government.
A jury verdict can be carried on a unanimous decision or on a majority decision as long as it is 11:1 or 10:2 and no less, a judge will not accept 9:3 decision, and the jury will be made to go back and deliberate more until they reach a unanimous or a majority verdict.
The qualifications needed to be in a jury are quite simple. Here are the three main boundaries you must fit into to become a juror; You must have no criminal offences in the last 10 years, you must be over 18 and under 70 years old and you must of lived in the UK for a minimum of 5 years since your thirteenth birthday. The act of parliament which set out these qualifications was called "The Juries act of 1974".
There are many advantages in favour of a jury. The jury is supposed to represent a cross section of the UK's public, where as most judges are middle class, middle aged and middle minded. For example, if there was a case on possession of cannabis then the judge would unnecessarily perceive this to be of a more serious nature than a jury. This is also known as trial by peers.
There are lots more advantages of juries, such as; juries give a decision based on fact as they have little knowledge of law. There are twelve people ...
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There are many advantages in favour of a jury. The jury is supposed to represent a cross section of the UK's public, where as most judges are middle class, middle aged and middle minded. For example, if there was a case on possession of cannabis then the judge would unnecessarily perceive this to be of a more serious nature than a jury. This is also known as trial by peers.
There are lots more advantages of juries, such as; juries give a decision based on fact as they have little knowledge of law. There are twelve people on a jury this must surely be more accurate and therefore fair than just one judge. The defendant will feel more at ease and comfortable than (s)he would with a judge, but...
On the other hand there are a lot of disadvantages of using juries in the English legal system, such as; they don't get paid so it would be very easy for them to loose interest in the case. This was proved recently, after a rape trial collapsed, due to members of the jury being caught watching a darts match on television instead of considering a verdict. The trial was forced to a retrial, wasting £34,000.
Another disadvantage is that each member of the jury is picked randomly by computer on a list of everybody that qualifies for jury duty, called the Electoral Register, You do not need any qualifications to be on this list, therefore they may not be intelligent enough to remember or store all of the information for the case.
A member of the jury may be disqualified and not tell anybody, but if they got found out, then no matter how far into the trial they were, they would have to call for a retrial wasting thousands of pounds of tax payers money. This leads to another disadvantage of trial by jury; it is very expensive.
A member of the jury may be biased towards someone of the same sex, race or religion. They could also be intimidated by the defendant, this is called jury nobbling. There was a very recent case of this, where the lawyers of Tony Martin made new legal moves to force an inquiry into claims that jury members at his murder trial were intimidated.
The legal team say they will ask the Court of Appeal to order an investigation into the allegations. They will also ask for trial documents relating to jury intimidation. The move follows an initial inquiry by officials at Norwich Crown Court, Where the trial took place.
The officials announced that after several hours of talks that no more action was planned, because there was no hard evidence to back up the claims.
Martin, 55, was jailed for life after being found guilty for the murder of 16-year-old burglar, Fred Barras, and wounding his accomplice, Brendon Fearon.
Both men were shot after breaking into Martin's isolated farmhouse, Bleak House, at Emneth Hungate, near Emneth, Norfolk.
The concern about possible intimidation was expressed by lawyers after a woman claiming to be a juror called a Norwich-based local radio phone-in, the day after the conviction.
The radio station, Braudland 102 fm later said that the woman caller had not spoken of being "intimidated, pressured or nobbled".
But Martin's solicitor, Nick Makin, said he had since had "interesting" phone conversations with several jurors.
The lawyers say an appeal will be formally lodged, and it is important to "get to the bottom" of the allegations.
"We feel we have got plenty of other grounds for an appeal but if there proves to be anything in these allegations of intimidation then that would no doubt play a part in any appeal," said Michael Ballinger, another member of Martin's legal team.
To prevent some of these disadvantages, some changes or alternatives to the jury system could be implied, such as more people for example 15 or even 20 jurors sitting on the bench. Pay them a wage as an incentive to be more interested and put more effort into finding the fairest verdict. Make it the judges decision, or have a panel of professional jurors.
I think that trial by jury in the English legal system is very effective as it is, and there is no need to change it. There have been a few problems with it in the past, but that's going to happen with whatever system we use. But overall works well and that's all that matters at the end of the day.
