Trial by jury is the cornerstone of the English legal system, adopted throughout the world and has it’s origins in the Magna Carta of 1215, clause 39 of which states:
“No freemen shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land”.
It would take a brave man, or government, to tamper with 798 years of English Law, but following the collapse of the Vicky Price trial that is exactly what is being advocated by many people, and large swathes of the media.
How has this come about, what is it about this particular trial that has caused so much concern about the jury system?
After some time deliberating the jury at Mrs Price’s trial sent ten questions to the judge. Now given the archaic defence being put forward by Mrs Price, that of marital coercion, some questions might well be expected, after all, it’s not everyday in these times of equal opportunity that a woman will admit to being ‘under her husband’s thumb’!
However, some of the questions certainly do give cause for concern.
For a jury to ask if it could reach a verdict based on a reason that was not presented in court and had no facts or evidence to support it is quite staggering and begs the question, if the verdict was not to be based on the evidence what on earth was it to be based on?
The supposition is that jurors had been searching the Internet at home and it was on what they had found there that they were considering basing their verdict, as if everything on the Internet, (this blog excepted), was true!
Another question of concern was ‘does the defendant have an obligation to present a defence’? This demonstrates a lamentable lack of knowledge of the concept of the presumption of innocence, that it is for the prosecution to prove guilt, not for the defence to disprove it, another rock upon which British Justice and English Law is founded.
Other questions, which to the informed may sound unreasonable, or even bizarre, do if nothing else demonstrate that the jury was trying its level best to separate the wheat from the chaff and come to a reasoned and fair verdict.
The fact that they were unable to do so is, in my opinion, no grounds for criticism, many juries are unable to reach even a majority verdict on an ordinary case, and this is, or rather was, far from ordinary.
That being said Mr Justice Sweeney was undoubtedly correct when he said that the questions that the jury asked him showed that at least some of the jurors had "a fundamental deficit in understanding", but whose fault is that?
Prior to 1972 and the report of the Morris Committee jurors had, amongst other things, to be over 21 and a property owner. This tended to ensure that juries were predominately white, male and middle class. While such discrimination may be unacceptable today it did at least ensure that jurors were, by and large, reasonably well educated.
Since 1972 jury eligibility has been considerably widened, and standards consequentially lowered. Now, provided you are over 18, and under 70, a UK resident for a minimum of 5 years and are not mentally disordered or otherwise disqualified, you can serve on a jury in the most complex of trials.
Given mass immigration from countries with no comparable legal system, the lamentable state of education in this country, and the years of liberal thinking when British history and social responsibility were considered too reactionary to be taught in schools, it is little wonder that the man-in-the-street has so little comprehension of the basis of the British Legal system, or English Law in general.
So is it time, as is being advocated in some quarters, to abandon the random selection of juries and replace it with a panel of trained jurors, or with four magistrates sitting with the judge to consider guilt or innocence?
As I said at the beginning of this post, it would be a brave man who proposed it, but it may come to that. There is already provision in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 for a judge to sit without a jury where the case is in-ordinarily complex, or there is a real risk of interference with the jury, and it’s a power that could be extended.
It’s certain that we will never be able to go back to the days of white, male, middle class and property-owning jurors, and I’m not sure we should, so what other avenue is there? Would better education rectify the lamentable lack of understanding shown by some jurors in the Vicky Price trial?
Let us hope so for I’m convinced that juries, by and large, try their best to get to grips with something which, for most of them, is an alien environment and a totally unfamiliar set of rules and procedures, and that, on the whole, they do a good job and, by whatever means, mostly come to the right decision.
Long may they continue.
