When trial by jury is a crime | Progress | News and debate from the ...

It does seem strange, that in this modern day, we continue to put twelve lay persons in such a position of vulnerability, by placing them directly in the path of powerful, wealthy, violent criminals.

From the gangster?s point of view, it?s as if we make them a challenge, by presenting them with a jury. It?s as if we say, if you can destroy a human being, or at least gain control of their mind, then we will give you your freedom. Here?s a choice of twelve. You need to destroy two of them to be safe, so choose carefully. If you lose, you go to jail. If you win, you get your freedom back. If you get detected trying to destroy these people, we?ll stop the trial and start again with a new jury, so you can have another go.

To the violent criminal, this sounds like fun. He is worth millions, has multitudes of criminal underlings at his disposal, and has private detectives and bent former police officers willing to get him the information he needs. Yet just to make sure things are properly balanced in his favour, we tell him the names of the jurors, then publish the polling register from which we recruited them, allowing him to more easily get their addresses.

What?s also surprising is the reaction of the lawyers and police whenever a jury has been nobbled. They get angry with the jurors. Can you believe that? The lay people who have been intimidated, or terrorised, or had their family threatened, are considered to be the villains in all this.

Personally, I think if someone agrees to do public service, only to have petrol poured through their letterbox, then my condemnation is saved for the politicians who thought it was a good idea to put them in such a vulnerable position in the first place.

Yet if there is ever a suggestion that we should restrict trial by jury, then a great chorus of objection rises. ?It?s our human rights!? they shriek. I respond by asking what about the right of ordinary citizen, not to be made the quarry of violent criminals? ?They?re attacking Magna Carta!? goes the other cry. Magna Carta is a law created to stop King John from imposing arbitrary punishment on his citizens. It?s not relevant to this argument, although I understand where the cry comes from.

The British people have always been suspicious that those who govern us, the politicians, want to change the system to suit them rather than us, the people. An obvious way of doing that would be to gain control of the courts, like the situation in Russia, where those girls have been jailed for singing a song, poking fun at Mr Putin.

I totally agree that we don?t want politicians to be in control of the courts. However, reforming the jury system is a long, long way off from giving politicians the power to impose arbitrary verdicts in trials. For a government to take over, they would have to first gain control of the judiciary. This wouldn?t happen because the separation of the judiciary and the state is deeply engrained in our society.

And anyway, we don?t want to remove juries in the bulk of cases. The jury system is often the superior one. Jurors think differently to lawyers, in that they apply common sense to the evidence, while lawyers apply logic to the evidence. Often, this means that juries produce verdicts that seem to be surprising, but when the lawyers consider it later, they see the method, and agree with the jury. In this way, jurors are better, because their perspective is fresh.

I?m not saying we should abolish trial by jury, but I am saying that there are circumstances where it is not appropriate to put twelve lay persons in such a position of vulnerability, and at the moment this situation continues, due to the objection of a vocal minority, who I believe are misguided to believe that reform is an attack on freedom.

The judicial system should have a mixed system of trials, where some are twelve-person juries, while others are tried by a panel of experts, and some by judges only. The important point is that the mode of trial should reflect the type of case, not the loudness of a minority of protesters.

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Dan McCurry is a candidate in the members? section in the Progress strategy board elections 2012. You can find out more about all the? candidates at the dedicated Progress strategy board election microsite

crime and justice, Progress strategy board elections

Source: http://www.progressonline.org.uk/2012/08/30/when-trial-by-jury-is-a-crime/

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