My Gran got called up once. In her words âif he is in court he must have done itâ
I also had a colleague on one where the jury was tied. In the end the bloke got sent down because one member âcouldnât spend all day there, they had to get dinner onâ and changed their vote to guilty, which was enough to swing it
As you say, a very simple concept. Yet beyond the grasp on some present, hence my comment about intelligence
In the first instance, thatâs why you have eleven other people.
In the second instance, someone should have gone to the judge. If your colleague and the rest of the jurors didnât bring this up, then theyâre just as guilty as perverting justice as Mr Canât Be Arsed.
Half the problem is those sitting on juryâs donât know thatâs what they should do. Guidance and training is woeful (says the man who l has never sat on one but has had long discussions with Sis C_S who has done 3 meaty ones)
That is if they are aware, or brave enough to stand up to the other eleven etc
Not everyone is a gob shite
My colleague was in the guilty as sin department so he was happy with the result
It was pretty clear when I did mine. Someone fucks with the process, you point it out.
Simples.
So what are the panelâs thoughts on using professional juries? 
You might as well have a panel of three judges
A professional jury would become embedded in the law and you would only ever get a legal decision. Sometimes justice would not be served
I remeber years back a report that a father and son were up on GBH for beating half to death the fathers brother / BiL (canât remember which). The nub of it was that the BiL sexually assaulted his niece and the came out, hence the beating.
The judge gave the âyou cannot take the law into your own handsâ line irrespective of the provocation. The Jury ignored this and aquitted them. I would say âjusticeâ was served, but a professional jury would not have given that verdict
On this note - someone I once knew was involved in a jury trial many, many years ago, in a galaxy far awayâŚ
The case was against a very young sailor (perhaps 18?), who was accused of being in possession of cannabis on the high seas.
Most of the case revolved around the prosecution explaining why UK courts had jurisdiction.
When the jury went off to deliberate, they were able to examine the evidence, which consisted of a tin containing a piece of cannabis smaller than the size of a smartie, found by a senior sailor who obviously (from the way he presented his evidence) had a downer on the young man, probably because he had long hair.
Apparently the jury then discussed in some depth what the fuck they were doing there, and didnât the police and CPS have better things to do.
The young man was declared innocent by the jury, and having learnt a huge lesson, probably never committed another misdemeanour of any kind. A guilty verdict may have completely ruined his life, for no gain.
The other thing that caused the jury some concern, was that the prosecution QC was middle aged, veryexperienced, clever, articulate and probably in great demand by the CPS; in comparison, the defence barrister was young, nervous, not very confident, and didnât really do a very good job of defending the young man, not his fault, but that was how the system worked.
A professional jury would probably have found the young man guilty, sent him to prison for a time, and completely ruined his life for no good reason. The young barrister would have probably have suffered lack of confidence for years, and may even never had made the grade.
Real people do have the opportunity of bringing a bit of humanity to the legal system, which perhaps we should be grateful for,
Sorry - as an addendum note - the person I once knew did say that no evidence was presented by the senior sailor as to whether the tin actually belonged to the defendant - he just found it close to the young mans bunk as he was âsearchingâ; in todayâs world this may have been illegal.
I remember hearing Harriet Harman interviewed on R4, I think while she was minister for equality. (She was definitely in the cabinet, not a shadow minister.) She was talking about the low level of rape convictions and saying they needed to be driven up, and the interviewer asked if that might be due to the difficulty of proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Harman replied, and Iâve always remembered this, that if a rape case had been brought to court then the accused was certainly guilty because the CPS or police wouldnât have brought them to trial otherwise. I recall being quite appalled that a serving cabinet member would express such a view in a public interview.
My thoughts about a professional jury would that they would have to be âreal peopleâ who are recruited based on their life experience rather than legal knowledge etc. There are clearly some good jurors and not so good jurors. If you could recruit the better ones from all walks of life wouldnât that level out the playing field?
Ps I am just putting this out there, I donât have any strong feelings myself. However when I was at the CPS we did lose a few cast iron guilty cases because of poor deliberations by juries.
That would work provided they were used for a short period of time, otherwise they would get institutionalised
If they are smart and sit on enough juries, they will pick up the legal aspect quickly and eventually start thinking like the legal profession
That was a staggering stupid thing to say. Even the CPS would be horrified by that statement. They might well believe the defendant to be guilty, but it is their job to prove that in a court of law. They would be the last people to say this person is guilty just because we say they are.
She is quite spectacularly thick, tbf. There was another gem which eludes me for the moment, she came out with around the same time.
We returned a no verdict of a 10/2, was told to come back with a unanimous decision, they got off but I still think they were very very lucky, if this case was in a police friendly environment theyâd have been fucked.
That is the luck of the draw I suppose.
All the jury service guff has been moved from the Covid thread to here, please try and keep the Covid thread on-topic.
Ta
Phew. Thx
Saved me digging up bucket loads of golf stuff to bore them back onto topic
I am all for removing the Lords as it stands as our upper house, especially as it really has no power anymore and it filled with life peers and awarded folks who I am not sure even have that much of an interest in public service⌠and that is what it should be
But as for how folks are âelectedâ or selected, it becomes more complex. The upper house should in theory be politically neutral so that it can debate what comes from the HoC independently and without prejudice (dont get me started on all that is wrong with âCommonsâ and âLordsâ irrespective of where the power now lies)⌠but it must contain folks committed to public service and with a level of experience and knowledge, wisdom etc⌠For the same reason we dont let children vote, we expect a certain level of maturity given the importance of the role⌠but I am none the wiser on how we find such folks and what the qualifying criteria should be, or how they should be appointed. Its about checks and balances to the upper house needs to have the experience and expertise to make informed decisions, amendments etc.
Probably need to go out and find some decent people who have demonstrated years of public service or volunteering or caring, or have worked pro bono because they know itâs right⌠and offer them a decent salary for 5-6 years to take it on⌠It needs commitment so Jury service like short terms is not the best approach imhoâŚ
