[DaveO]

Re: Trial by jury : Thu Feb 21, 2013 12:07 pm  

Mintball wrote:

Process may confuse jurors as well as really complex cases (fraud for instance) but that goes way beyond such things.

So what do you suggest should have happened?

Re: Trial by jury : Thu Feb 21, 2013 12:23 pm  

Could it be that the composition and ethnic background of this jury may have contributed to the list of questions sent to the Judge?

Should we put it down to simply an unfortunate juxtaposition of people, a tad lacking in what was required from them? Or perhaps we need to look at raising the bar on Jury service, from the original qualify standard of simply owning property, to one where there is at least a basic understanding of the English language?

I was tempted to put " a reasonable understanding of the English language," but I suspect some clever clogs would be asking for a definition of reasonable.......

Re: Trial by jury : Thu Feb 21, 2013 12:31 pm  

After a million trials and a billion jurors doing invariably an exceptional job, ONE jury is discharged for incompetence and you want to scrap the entire system.

You couldn't make it up.

Re: Trial by jury : Thu Feb 21, 2013 12:36 pm  

rumpelstiltskin wrote:

Could it be that the composition and ethnic background of this jury may have contributed to the list of questions sent to the Judge?

Should we put it down to simply an unfortunate juxtaposition of people, a tad lacking in what was required from them? Or perhaps we need to look at raising the bar on Jury service, from the original qualify standard of simply owning property, to one where there is at least a basic understanding of the English language?

I was tempted to put " a reasonable understanding of the English language," but I suspect some clever clogs would be asking for a definition of reasonable.......

Look back at my example from the mid 1970's ... the guy I'm talking about there was British, not from any detectable ethnic background other than British and he could speak better than "reasonable" English ... but completely misunderstood his duties and the meaning of the word "evidence".

Re: Trial by jury : Thu Feb 21, 2013 1:08 pm  

rumpelstiltskin wrote:

Could it be that the composition and ethnic background of this jury may have contributed to the list of questions sent to the Judge?

Should we put it down to simply an unfortunate juxtaposition of people, a tad lacking in what was required from them? Or perhaps we need to look at raising the bar on Jury service, from the original qualify standard of simply owning property, to one where there is at least a basic understanding of the English language?

I was tempted to put " a reasonable understanding of the English language," but I suspect some clever clogs would be asking for a definition of reasonable.......

It didn't take long for one of the obvious candidates to find a race aspect, did it?

Given that most – if not all – of the internet responses to the Hilary Mantel business that I have seen seem to have been from white Brits (or Americans), there's hardly a dearth of wilful stupidity around without worrying about playing the 'ethnic' card.

Re: Trial by jury : Thu Feb 21, 2013 1:10 pm  

DaveO wrote:

So what do you suggest should have happened?

It's quite interesting to ask how other countries manage to have a decent judicial system.

Mind, what would help is (somehow) improving the general standard of public discourse in this country. Although that would mean the majority of the media stopping deliberately dumbing down to grab the largest share of the market possible.

Re: Trial by jury : Thu Feb 21, 2013 1:24 pm  

In the specific case of accepting your husbands speeding points, and with the proviso that I haven't a clue how far the range of evidence went, its a fair question to ask how far the "reasonable doubt" issue should be stretched when you are dealing with a specific offence that depends upon the defendant admitting guilt rather than the state proving it - if you've ever seen some of the "evidence" gathered by speed cameras then you'd realise what I mean.

Having said that this case is a beautiful paradox, she accuses him of doing something which he denies and in doing so drops herself in it too, then he admits doing the thing that she accused him of but they can't find a jury to convict her of dropping herself in it - all we need now is for him to get off the hook and we can tie it all up in a nice big parcel with a big pink bow and file under "too confusing for a jury"

Re: Trial by jury : Thu Feb 21, 2013 2:02 pm  

JerryChicken wrote:

snip

Huhne is German for chicken. Chris - is it really you??

Re: Trial by jury : Thu Feb 21, 2013 2:06 pm  

Mintball wrote:

I've no doubt about the sincerity of the jurors, but how could anyone ask: 'Can a juror come to a verdict based on a reason that was not presented in court and has no facts or evidence to support it either from the prosecution or defence?'

To be honest they may as well make up their own story when you see some of the evidence and defences put forth!

Re: Trial by jury : Thu Feb 21, 2013 2:27 pm  

I think these sort of juries are probably common but in this case it was newsworthy. I did a bit of jury service at the ' Bailey a few years ago and on one of the cases I was involved in some of the jurors were a joke. Rather like this case we had to go back two or three times to have simple questions answered because of a couple of stupid / over-anxious jurors. The judge had carefully explained the points in question and me an AN Other-Juror tried to explain things and what the judge had said but no we had to reconvene. Bearing in mind they stick another case in the Court while the jury deliberates it was really embarassing having to reconvene with all the participants being reassembled on such minor points. Judge started to get sarcastic. Some of the points made by jurors during deliberation were beyond belief - one anxious woman in particular argued that as the judge had been careful to say that to convict our minds had to be made up beyond reasonable doubt then as she hadn't been there to witness the alleged crime she nust have doubt! Another woman then agreed and things spiralled downhill. They could not seem to see that if they'd been there they would have been witnesses and not jurors and that therefore no one could ever be convicted! Then they were worried if they found the defendant guilty because it was a serious offence he might get locked up for a while! I pointed out that the judge was responsible for sentencing and he was somewhat more experienced than us.

When he was eventually found 'innocent' the judge was very sarcastic saying something like he was glad we had been so careful in reaching such a well thought out verdict. Defendant was "over the moon" and practically in shock and was thanking us. Alleged victim's family were rather abusive.