“ There were no circumstances in which a judge was entitled to direct a jury to return a verdict of guilty” because a “belief that the jury would probably, and rightly, have convicted does not enable a trial judge to give a direction to convict ... when there were matters which could and should have been the subject of their consideration”.
Trials by jury are mainly used in the Crown Court and rarely in civil cases. It is recorded that ninety-eight percent of criminal trials are held in the magistrates’ court; of the remainder of which is held in the Crown court, the majority plead guilty leaving only approximately one percent of defendants being tried by jury. These facts became clearly evident during several recent court visits as very few trials had juries sworn in; in fact only three out of the ten courts had juries present on 14th October 2011. This shows how the importance of juries is overrated as, when given the choice, most defendants choose to appear before magistrates.
From the 19th Century onwards, jury service was restricted for owners of property exceeding a certain value but currently, under the Juries Act 1974, based on the recommendations of the Morris Committee 1965, any UK resident between the ages of 18 and 70 on the electoral register are eligible for jury service. Before the Criminal Justice Act 2003 was introduced, ineligible persons included those whom one would consider to exercise undue influence upon the jury’s decision by virtue of their professional knowledge of the justice system, i.e. judges, lawyers, police officers etc. However, after act was introduced, the only people that could be excused from jury service were those whom were ‘mentally disordered.’ This contradicts what was witnessed in the Combined Courts of Newcastle recently, where in R v Bell, Judge Evans deemed it inappropriate for a Newcastle police-man and a Crime Scene Investigator working in Durham to sit on the jury panel, hence showing that the ‘law in the books’ is not always the same as ‘law in action.’ Similarly, the appellants in the cases of R v Abdroikov and joined cases also claimed the presence of certain jurors prejudiced the fairness of their respective trials with regard to bias being involved and the law lords upheld their claims.
When visiting the courts, it became apparent that jury members can be excused on the day of their jury service. The case of R v Stephen was postponed because one jury member felt ‘too distressed’ after giving a guilty verdict of murder in the previous case and was therefore excused. This contradicts the law stated in the Juries Act 1974 which stresses that a judge may only discharge a juror from service if he doubts their “capacity to act effectively as a juror” because of insufficient understanding of English or physical disability. Also, In R v Johnson & Hope, those of the jury panel that had read the Blive newspaper or lived in the Blive area were excused from the case, hence showing the impartial role played by the jury.
It could be argued that the use of juries can be unreliable do to their lack of legal understanding regarding the specific area of law examined. Auld L.J’s recommendation of empowering trial judges in more complex fraud cases was accepted and included in the Criminal Justice Act 2003, meaning cases that would be unduly burdensome on jurors in terms of complexity and length would be put on trial by judge alone. This replacement followed the costly Maxwell brothers’ trial 1995-96. Sir Frederick Lawton once argued that jurors ‘level of understanding of cases, and perhaps their level of intelligence, are not always up to the task they have to perform’.
The importance of the jury recently has declined due to the introduction of such acts as The Senior Courts Act 1981, which stipulates the right to a jury trial is limited to four specific areas; fraud, defamation, malicious prosecution and false imprisonment. The first criminal trial held without a jury occurred in 2010. The introduction of The Criminal Law Act 1977 and the Justice Act 1988 also limited the power of the jury. However, one cannot say the Jury does not play an important role as Lord Birkett once said:-
“…the jury introduces into the law an element of community sentiment and fairness: a jury can do justice where a judge ... has to follow the law…”
Bibliography
1. Case
-
R v Wang [2005] 1 W.L.R 661
-
R v Bell (Newcastle Crown Court 21 October 2011)
-
R v Abdroikov and joined cases [2007] UK HL 37
-
R v Stephen (Newcastle Crown Court 21 October 2011)
-
R v Johnson & Hope (Newcastle Crown Court 21 October 2011)
-
R -v- Twomey and Others [2010] 1 WLR 630
2. Legislation
- Criminal Justice Act 2003 sch. 33
- Criminal Justice Act 1967
-
Annual Criminal Statistics, Home Office Website
3. Case comment
-
Slapper G& Kelly D, The English Legal System 2011-2012 (12th edn, Routledge 2011) 548
-
Malleson K & Moules R, The Legal System (4th edn, OUP 2010) 316
-
Auld L.J. Criminal Courts Review 2001
Kate Malleson & Richard Moules, The Legal System (4th edn, OUP 2010) 316
R v Wang [2005] 1 W.L.R 661
Gary Slapper & David Kelly, The English Legal System 2011-2012 (12th edn, Routledge 2011) 548
Annual Criminal Statistics, Home Office Website
Criminal Justice Act 2003 sch. 33
R v Bell (Newcastle Crown Court 21 October 2011)
R v Abdroikov and joined cases [2007]UK HL 37
R v Stephen (Newcastle Crown Court 21 October 2011)
R v Johnson & Hope (Newcastle Crown Court 21 October 2011)
Auld L.J. Criminal Courts Review 2001
Criminal Justice Act 2003, Part 7, Section 43
R -v- Twomey and Others [2010] 1 WLR 630
