Briefly outline where juries can be found and explain the selection and qualification procedures used in the jury system.

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Stephen Hardman          Law        9/2/03

Juries

  1. Briefly outline where juries can be found and explain the selection and qualification procedures used in the jury system.

Juries can be seen in many areas of our legal system.  The most obvious is when they are found in the Crown Court, deciding the verdict of the trial. However jury trials account for less than one per cent of all criminal trials, but nevertheless play an important role in cases such as murder and rape.  Juries are also seen in the High Court, dealing with such cases as defamation, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution and allegations of fraud, they will decide if the accused is liable and if so decide the amount awarded in damages.  The County Court also uses juries for the same types of cases as the High Court, and their role is also identical.  The last court to use juries is that of the Coroner’s Court, where the jury will decide the cause of death in circumstances such as deaths in prison, in police custody, industrial accidents or where the health and safety of the public is involved.

In the Crown Court, an official is appointed who is responsible for summonsing enough jurors to sit at the cases to be heard over the course of the fortnight.  The jurors are randomly selected from the electoral register, for the area that the court covers. Summons are then sent to the correct number of people required, these people must attend for two weeks jury duty.  It is necessary to order for more than the actual number of jurors needed, as some may be disqualified and others may not turn up, this allows the cases to proceed regardless of these setbacks.  

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To sit as a juror you must be aged between 18 and 70, have your name listed on the Register of Electors for Parliamentary or Local Government elections, and have lived in the United Kingdom, The Channel Islands or the Isle of Man for a length of 5 years since the age of 13.  Possible jury members are not qualified if they have ever been sentenced to imprisonment for life, to imprisonment or youth custody for 5 years or more, to be detained during Her Majesty’s Pleasure.  If they have in the last 10 years served a sentence of imprisonment, ...

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