Another advantage is the importance of certainty in the law. The jury adds this factor into the cases, since it gives a general verdict which cannot give rise to misinterpretation. This can often prevent absurdities from occurring, as is the case with many past cases where the judge uses the literal rule to come to a conclusion. With a jury, the decision is based on public morals, and in no way represents the law, even if the jury is told that the act is illegal by the judge eg. R v Ponting.
Another advantage of the jury system in serious criminal cases is the idea that the juries judge according to conscience, which is a very important factor in today’s law, which is so complicated. It is important that the idea of conscience is still present in law, and this is a big advantage of the jury system. It is even more important in serious criminal cases, as if the jury believes that the defendant did wrong, then they will convict him. And if they did not do anything wrong, then the jury would acquit them.
Another huge advantage of using a jury is the idea of ‘conviction mindedness’. This basically means that a person so involved in decided the fate of defendants may sometimes make the wrong decisions, and decide that they are guilty, when in fact they are not. This is usually commonplace in judges who are used to seeing serious criminal defendants, and the judge may be slightly biased accidentally. This is the benefit of the jury system – the jury consists of mainly people who are not aware of the court environment, and of those who are not used to seeing defendants every day. Because of this, the juries tend to find less people guilty, and this is reflected in the statistics of those who are found guilty and those who are not. 40% of defendants who appear in front of judges get convicted, when only 20% of defendants who appear in front of juries get convicted. This could either be caused by conviction mindedness, or by the lack of competence of juries.
A disadvantage of the jury system is the lack of competence juries have with the law. Because they are randomly selected citizens from the electoral register, most of them do not have satisfactory knowledge in law, and so have to be directed by the judge. This disadvantage is important in civil cases such as those involving defamation, as the jury has no knowledge on the extent of the damages, and this can lead to absurd results, such as a case involving a tabloid newspaper and a wife of a convicted criminal. The newspaper had proposed that the wife knew of everything that was happening, and so she sued the newspaper for defamation and received £600,000 for it, thanks to the ‘knowledge’ of a jury. These perverse verdicts highlight how the jury system has little competence when it comes to law. In recent cases however, the judge has decided on the extent of the damages, and has left the jury to decide whether the money should be paid, which is a much better way of deciding how much damage is owed, as the judge has specific knowledge in law, whereas the jury does not.
Another disadvantage would be that sometimes, very rarely, manipulation by defendants is possible. This means that sometimes, defendants may bribe or reach a bargain, or even threaten members of juries in order for them to be acquitted. This is often not a major concern in juries, as it does not happen very often, but the threat is still there. When this happens, it is called jury nobbling, and occurs much more often when the defendant is on bail.
Another disadvantage of the jury system is that is requires that all jury members be absent from work, or what they usually do, for however long the trial lasts; sometimes months. This can be a very disadvantageous thing, as it disrupts the lives of the jury members for however long the trial lasts. Because the employer is legally obliged to compensate for the workers losses whilst at the trial, the self employed are usually the most hard-hit by jury service, as well as people who have responsibilities to their children, such as new parents who can’t be separated from their children for too long. As well as this, modern law reform on jury service has hardened down on the excuses for jury service, and so fewer excuses are now available.
Yet another disadvantage for the jury service is that the cost and the time used up for each trial is a lot; in fact, much more than if the trial was decided by a judge. According to Elliot and Quinn, the average cost of a case by judge is around £2000, whereas the average cost of a case by jury is around £8000. This shows that it is a lot more expensive to trial by jury, which is why recently it has been a target for critics of law and the taxpayers. The reason for the high cost is the speed of the trial. Often trials by jury are much slower than trials by judge, as the juries need to understand the facts of the case, and as well as this, the juries have to reach a unanimous decision by the end of a case, which may take hours or even days to reach, as each of them have to aregue their case in the jury room. Compared to a trial by judge who decides usually within a few hours, trials by jury are often long and expensive.
The final disadvantage for trial by jury is the distress a case may have on the jury members. Many criminal cases that are tried by jury in the crown court are gruesome, which may have a negative effect on the members of the jury. Judges can cope with the extent of some of these cases, as they may have been ‘desensitised’ by the years of working with criminal cases, but the jury members have little experience in dealing with such cases, and may react in a very distressing nature.
In conclusion, I think it is very much appropriate to use juries in criminal cases, but not in civil cases, such as those concerning defamation, as the juries have no significant expertise in deciding the amount of damages owed to the prosecution. It should be up to judge to decide the outcome of these cases. I think this, as in many past cases such as that involving Elton John, outrageous damages have been paid out, which would have been more sensible if a judge had decided them. In serious criminal cases, I think that juries should stay with us as it shows a strong legal system if it is seen that cases are decided by the people, opposed to a bunch of public-schooled judges who only share one opinion about defendants. I think juries should stay with us as part of the English legal system in criminal law, but the system should be reformed slightly. For example, because being on a jury costs each juror a significant amount of money, the jurors should be reimbursed after the trial. Also, the excuses for being excused for jury service should be looked into more, finding more excuses for the people that really need them. Finally, to prevent jury nobbling, more police officers should be stationed in court. This would hopefully decrease the rate of nobbling.
