The Student Room Group

HAVING A JURY: useless, undemocratic and simple

What exactly is the point in having a jury?

They are a panel of lay members of society who have absolutely no knowledge about law. How can these people be expected to help mete out justice?

The amount of appeal cases I have read that have gone to appeal because of the stupidity both of the jurors (who have returned verdicts wholly inconsistent with the advice of the judge) and also the trial stage judge who has misdirected the jury.
In fact I read one yesterday where the trial stage judge had mixed up intent and recklessness and therefore mixed up murder and manslaughter.

Surely we should have at the court of first instance carefully appointed justices who

(i) Have judicial experience or experience as barristers and all have a diverse range of legal interests.
(ii) Reflect society proportionately.
(iii) Are able to discuss the matter at hand in an academic and non-simplistic manner.


This would lead to:

(i) Better quality justice
(ii) Reduction in the amount of avoidable appeals to the higher courts
(iii) Less arbitrary justice in the hands of god knows who - the spectrum of who can sit as a juror is far too wide - this will sound awfully hoity-toity of me, but I have known retail assistants sit as jurors before.
(edited 13 years ago)

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Reply 1
*bumped as this took a while to get approved*
Reply 2
:smile:
Reply 3
Juries have been around for centuries, so clearly something is working :tongue:
Interesting point.
Reply 5
Original post by PerigeeApogee
What stupid logic.


Do not state that my logic is stupid! :tongue:
Reply 6
Jurors aren't supposed to have legal knowledge, they're supposed to decide on facts.
Reply 7
This is a prime example of how knowledge of the law leads to better justice! :awesome:
Reply 8
Because sometimes the law isn’t always right, having a jury of laymen protects people who may have technically broken the law but in the eyes of many haven’t done anything wrong.

The right to trial by jury is one of our greatest freedoms; those who wish to take it away should be viewed with great suspicion.
Reply 9
Original post by calannra
Juries have been around for centuries, so clearly something is working :tongue:


By that logic, Christianity has been around for centuries so it must be fact.
Original post by lesbionic
What exactly is the point in having a jury?

They are a panel of lay members of society who have absolutely no knowledge about law. How can these people be expected to help mete out justice?

The amount of appeal cases I have read that have gone to appeal because of the stupidity both of the jurors (who have returned verdicts wholly inconsistent with the advice of the judge) and also the trial stage judge who has misdirected the jury.
In fact I read one yesterday where the trial stage judge had mixed up intent and recklessness and therefore mixed up murder and manslaughter.

Surely we should have at the court of first instance carefully appointed justices who

(i) Have judicial experience or experience as barristers and all have a diverse range of legal interests.
(ii) Reflect society proportionately.
(iii) Are able to discuss the matter at hand in an academic and non-simplistic manner.


This would lead to:

(i) Better quality justice
(ii) Reduction in the amount of avoidable appeals to the higher courts
(iii) Less arbitrary justice in the hands of god knows who - the spectrum of who can sit as a juror is far too wide - this will sound awfully hoity-toity of me, but I have known retail assistants sit as jurors before.


I was trying to abolish the jury system here in TSR MHoC but only two persons were in favour of the bill. I support your opinion.
Original post by lesbionic
(ii) Reflect society proportionately.


Just on that one point, I'd imagine that'd be quite hard to achieve using only legal professionals.
Reply 12
Original post by sandys1000
Just on that one point, I'd imagine that'd be quite hard to achieve using only legal professionals.


They have to be legal professionals if we're to mimic the composition of the UK Supreme Court.

In terms of reflecting society; one means in background, class, ethnicity, age...
Original post by lesbionic
They have to be legal professionals if we're to mimic the composition of the UK Supreme Court.

In terms of reflecting society; one means in background, class, ethnicity, age...


It's already quite difficult to get a representative jury though, senior lawyers tend not to be so.
Don't see what juries have to do with incompetent judges?
Original post by Renner
Because sometimes the law isn’t always right, having a jury of laymen protects people who may have technically broken the law but in the eyes of many haven’t done anything wrong.

The right to trial by jury is one of our greatest freedoms; those who wish to take it away should be viewed with great suspicion.


That in itself is then unfair. I always thought the point of court was to decide whether you've broken the law or not. Not what a bunch of random people from the local area deem acceptable or not. If it's something that's illegal but society sees it as being ok, that will be reflected in a lenient sentence.

And no-ones saying it should be taken away, they are saying they should be a bit more selective with who they choose. I'd still like it to be broad though - if specific people were selected then it could be done to try and pre-fix an outcome (not saying theres much chance of it happening now, but who knows what the future will be like).
You do know half the point of juries is the lack of legal training?

Anyway, yeah they do sometimes pop out some retarded stuff but meh.
Reply 17
Original post by lesbionic
The amount of appeal cases I have read that have gone to appeal because of the stupidity both of the jurors...


Well the jury is there to mitigate the inherent stupidity of law :p: no legislation or precedent can be completely applicable to complex cases and the jury is there to give the system a bit of perspective in case the legal system produces a verdict that's clearly idiotic.
Reply 18
Original post by Arekkusu
Well the jury is there to mitigate the inherent stupidity of law :p: no legislation or precedent can be completely applicable to complex cases and the jury is there to give the system a bit of perspective in case the legal system produces a verdict that's clearly idiotic.


One is supposed to trust the random findings of 12 lay folk over our marvellously evolved legal system of common and statute law? There's as much intellect in what they do as watching an episode of Taggart and deciding "she did it."
Original post by Installation
You do know half the point of juries is the lack of legal training?

Anyway, yeah they do sometimes pop out some retarded stuff but meh.


So legally trained people can't be jurors:confused:

I don't trust the average muppet off the street to objectively and dispassionately assess evidence, and someone has already stated why having 12 muppets is not much better than 1.

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