14 Juries PDF

14 Juries 14 Juries R v McKenna (1960) The judge at the trial threatened the jury that if they did not return a verdi...

14 Juries 14 Juries R v McKenna (1960) The judge at the trial threatened the jury that if they did not return a verdict within another ten minutes they would be locked up all night. The jury After you have read this chapter you should be then returned a verdict of guilty, but the defendant’s able to: conviction was quashed on appeal because of the Understand the qualifications for being a juror judge’s interference. and how jurors are selected Describe the role of the jury in criminal courts Understand and be able to comment on the 14.2 Juries in criminal courts advantages and disadvantages of using juries in The most important use of juries today is in the criminal courts Crown Court where they decide whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. Jury trials, however, account for about 2 per cent of all criminal trials. 14.1 History of the jury system This is because about 94 per cent of cases are dealt Juries have been used in the legal system for over with in the Magistrates’ Court, and of the cases that 1,000 years. There is evidence that they were used go to the Crown Court, about two out of every three even before the Norman Conquest. However, in defendants will plead guilty. A jury in the Crown 1215 when trial by ordeal was condemned by the Court has 12 members. Church and (in the same year) the Magna Carta Certain basic qualifications are needed for a person included the recognition of a person’s right to to be eligible to be on a jury. There are also some trial by ‘the lawful judgment of his peers’, juries people who are disqualified from being a juror. became the usual method of trying criminal cases. Originally they were used for providing 14.2.1 Basic qualifications local knowledge and information, and acted The qualifications are set out in the Juries Act 1974 more as witnesses than decision makers. By the (as amended) so that to qualify for jury service a middle of the fifteenth century, juries had become person must be: independent assessors and assumed their modern aged between 18 and 75 inclusive (age increased role as deciders of fact. from 70 by the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 14.1.1 The independence of the jury 2015) registered as a parliamentary or local government The independence of the jury became even more elector firmly established following Bushell’s Case (1670). ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man for at least five Bushell’s Case (1670) years since their thirteenth birthday. Several jurors refused to convict Quaker activists of unlawful assembly. The trial judge would not accept the However, certain people are not permitted to sit not guilty verdict, and ordered the jurors to resume their on a jury even though they are within these basic deliberations without food or drink. When the jurors qualifications; these are people who are disqualified persisted in their refusal to convict, the court fined them and committed them to prison until the fines were paid. or mentally disordered. On appeal, the Court of Common Pleas ordered the release of the jurors, holding that jurors could not be 14.2.2 Disqualification punished for their verdict. Disqualified permanently from jury service are those who at any time have been sentenced to: This case established that the jury were the imprisonment for life, detention for life or custody sole arbiters of fact and the judge could not for life challenge their decision. A more modern example, detention during Her Majesty’s pleasure (prison) demonstrating that judges must respect the or during the pleasure of the Secretary of State (a independence of the jury, is R v McKenna (1960). young offenders’ institute) 115