We have recently discovered that the jury system, much beloved of the legal establishment, doesn't always work very well.
The jury in the Vicky Pryce case showed, by their questions to the judge, that they didn't really understand what they were doing. Well, I say "the jury", but in reality, I suspect it was just one or two members of the jury. Reading between the lines, I would guess that most of the jury understood perfectly well what they were doing, but one or two rogue jurors had other ideas, and weren't going to listen to what their more sensible colleagues were telling them. The questions to the judge were phrased in such as way that I suspect the sensible members of the jury were just making sure that the judge would explain to the rogue members what they had been trying to explain all along.
We've all heard about this because it's a high profile case that was all over the news long before the jury ever had to start considering anything. But I wonder whether juries frequently misunderstand things in all the everyday cases that never make it onto the news?
The legal establishment will tell you that the jury system is one of the things that makes British justice great. And I must admit I do like the way that it ensures that individual judges don't get too much power. There is something reassuring about being judged by a group of your peers.
But this has made me wonder whether we are really going about selecting juries in the right way. I am worried about 2 aspects of the way in which juries are selected: that they are conscripted, and that no consideration is given to whether the individuals picked are reasonable people who are capable of understanding what happens in court.
It strikes me as very odd indeed that we use conscription for juries in what is supposed to be a free society. The Royal Navy gave up conscription in 1814. They sensibly realised that sailors who were serving voluntarily were likely to be better motivated than ones who were only there because they had been compelled to be there by force. After almost 200 years, I would have hoped that the legal system would have cottoned on to that rather obvious fact. I can't help thinking that volunteer jurors would be less likely than conscripts to spend the trial listening to their mp3 players, for example.
I have no doubt that a great many people would volunteer for jury service, particularly if jurors were paid a fair rate for their time.
And shouldn't we have at least some sort of minimum qualification to be on a jury? Obviously it would be quite wrong to insist that jurors be legally qualified: that would defeat the point of being judged by ordinary people. I suspect the bar needs to be set quite low. Perhaps you'd need at least a couple of A levels to be eligible? Perhaps you could take a short test to check how well you understand the sort of things that are presented in court? I don't know what the best way would be: that sort of thing would be best decided by appropriate research.
It's very rare to hear any of the legal establishment criticise the jury system. It seems to be something of a sacred cow, and it's regarded as "just not done" for those within the legal profession to dissent.
But I can't help thinking that if the 12 jurors in the Vicky Pryce case were all there of their own free will and had demonstrated that they met some kind of minimum standard of suitability for jury service, we wouldn't now be facing the bill for an expensive retrial.
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Dr
I accept the basic point - that forcing people in a free society is contrary to some of its professed core principles. However if we were to start placing bars on certain people with regards jury service, who is to judge what bars are reasonable? Furthermore I would accept happily that people with an IQ below an arbitrary point (for the sake of argument let's say 90) might strain to understand elements of a complex case, but of course they also might struggle to comprehend the finer points of politics and political ideology. Do we therefore bar them from voting as well? And therein lies the problem, because there is a correlation between intelligence and political leanings - with more intelligent people increasingly tending to vote left. By barring them from voting it skews the results in favour of the left. Likewise by rigging the juries this would lead to biases in their decisions.New comment
Thanks for your comment, Christopher. Ah yes, I see the similarities between the question of do we impose minimum standards on jurors and the same question for voters. That does indeed get very tricky.
But I'm not sure it necessarily follows that if we do one then we have to do the other, although perhaps it's hard to be completly consistent if you don't. Still, personally, I would tend to favour pragmatism over consistency.
BTW, I was intrigued by your comment that more intelligent people are more likely to vote left. Do you have a source for that?
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I too got the impression that it was a case of one or two of the jury not understanding or possibly having made up their minds before even entering the courtroom and looking for ways to justify a decision not warrented by the evidence presented. I felt the other jurors were not able to get through to them and trying to use the judge as a kind of ultimate authority (and failing). The judge tried the majority verdict too to try to get round this.
Re don't conscript and rely on volunteers then there will be a severe lack of jury members (blogging as someone who has been on a number of committees and ended up doing more than I ought because others like the kudos but not the work) The alternative is 'professional' juries, but this will not be peer judgement then as there will be a type of person willing to sit.
I think there is a question to be asked about the ability to speak fluent English because there are so many nuances, dialects and colloqualisms that mean even near neighbours struggle to understand each other let alone someone from abroad taught 'BBC English' or someone who has a working knowledge of English sufficient for day to day life. The classic is the WW11 example where an English officer said the situation was a 'bit sticky' meaning they were in dire straits and needed immediate help and his American counterpart who interpreted it as a 'no problem, we're holding our own' type response.
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Ah no sorry - I haven't any source. In fact it's something of a dubious connection, but there is often asserted a connection between intelligence and democratic voting, as well as atheistic thinking.