Most civil cases are tried by judge but certain civil cases such as false imprisonment, fraud and defamation
A jury in a civil case is slightly different. They hear they case and then must decide in favour of one side based on the arguments given by both sides. They jury are also responsible for deciding the amount of damages that must be paid. They can decide on any amount they like.
The jurors must reach unanimous decision (all 12 jurors must agree). If they all cannot agree the judge is informed. The judge may give them more time or accept a majority vote of 11 to 1, or 10 to 2. If the jury still cannot agree on a verdict after a long period the judge declares a hung jury. The jury room must have secrecy due to the contempt of court act 1981. It states that it is an offence to disclose information (if you are a juror) or try to find out what has been said in the jury room. The act was introduced to try and stop ‘jury tampering’ to ensure fair trial.
(b) To what extent is it true that juries are randomly selected?
It would be unfair to go out and pick people to be on a jury so jurors must be selected at random for a fair trial to take place. The jury for a trial is a group of 12 people that are selected out of the millions of people that live in the UK, so surely the selection of the jury is random, but certain criteria, exemptions and challenges could be considered to make the trial unfair by having non-random juries.
There are certain criteria for a person to be eligible for jury service and criteria for you to be exempt. A person has to be 18 to 70, on the electoral register and have lived in the UK for 5 years to be eligible. If you have ever been convicted of a crime or are currently on bail or criminal proceedings you cannot sit on a jury. If you suffer or have suffered from a mental disorder you are exempt. Also your job can mean you are exempt for example solicitors, barristers, clergymen and anyone that works in the police force can’t be a juror. Many people feel that due to these restrictions the selection is not random enough or from a wide enough range of people as whole groups of people are left out. The homeless and many people in the ethnic minority for example can’t be selected. Critics also suggest that there is no reason why people in the legal profession and clergy should be exempt from jury service as they are unlikely to be biased and there expertise would mean they would have a clear understanding of the trial.
If people aren’t exempt then due to certain circumstances they can be excused from doing jury service if they are called up. Anyone over 65 can refuse as well as doctors, nurses, midwifes, Mp’s or people in the armed forces. Anyone who has done jury service within 2 years can refuse if called up again. Any person summoned may also be excused if he or she can persuade the court officer that there is good reason to do so. Otherwise it is a legal obligation to attend jury service, but as many people find any excuse not to attend the selection is again made less random.
Even after the selection of the 12 jurors is made, alterations can be made in court due to certain challenges. Both sides can make challenges. Challenge to the array is a challenge suggesting the whole jury is a biased selection, for example they are all very similar age, same sex, all from same area. Challenge for the cause is where the defendant challenges an individual juror if they think they are biased. The prosecution are allowed to ask any juror to stand down without stating a reason. The defence has not got the right to ask a juror to stand down.
Challenging a juror or the whole jury is used to ensure that there is no bias and therefore helping to ensure the defendant gets a fair trial. As valid reasons have to be given for the suspected bias it can’t really be used to give a defendant an advantage.
Allowing the prosecution to get rid of any jury member (stand by for the crown) was very unfair as the prosecution could gain an advantage by removing witnesses that looked unlikely to convict but you could never be sure as they are only going on appearance. In 1998 the rights for the prosecution were changed so they could only ask a juror to stand down if they were clearly unsuitable and the defence agreed or after authorised vetting (in terrorist trials). As the defence now had to agree the original random selection could only be changed if it was clear the juror was unsuitable, so the rule helped to keep the jury more random and not selected.
Jury vetting was another thing that is considered to suggest the jury selection is not random enough and that trials were not being kept fair as the government would have an influence on juries picked. Jury vetting involves the prosecution investigating jurors to see how likely they are to convict. Job, interests, political views amongst others can be used to gage how likely a juror is to convict. This again gives the prosecution an advantage as they can select the jurors most likely to convict ensuring that it is not a random selection. Because of these problems the attorney general issued guidelines in 1980 that said vetting should only take place in trials concerned with terrorism or official secrets trials (where there would be a strong government interest).
I think that juries are selected reasonably randomly and due to restrictions on asking jurors to stand down and vetting it has kept the jury more random which enables the trials to be fair. But a jury could be more random by selecting from a wider cross section of society by including people who work in the legal profession and clergy and also including non home owners or people who aren’t registered to vote. It is important to keep dury selection as random as possible as it help to ensure a defendant gets a fair trial.
