The representation of the legal system on TV is so bad. TV shows glorify cops, they make it look like cases are nearly always solved, and nearly always solved correctly, like bad guys always get what's coming to them -- the disservice done by entertainment such as Law & Order is shameful.
The prosecutor in the attempted kidnapping trial hung around in the hall afterwards to ask jurors why he had lost. I and a couple others answered his questions, but he was so stunned that he'd lost I didn't get the impression he took on board what we said.
For those in the UK: I've been watching the TV programme on C4 and it is almost nothing like the jury trial I experienced.
One example: I'm pretty sure we were told to not discuss the evidence until we'd heard the whole case and were locked into the jury room. We certainly didn't sit around in breaks having arguments over cups of coffee.
As far as I recall we mostly sat in silence reading books or quietly had conversations about anything that wasn't the case.
I was thinking it might be worthwhile to discuss the mock trial case that is on British TV. I noticed the spoiler tag so I'm going to attempt to use it below in case anyone wants to watch it later.
So the case is about a man accused of murder. His wife is found dead from a blow to the head with a blacksmiths hammer. The accused admits manslaughter but denies murder, saying that he was pushed to it.
The evidence is quite thin but includes:
Character witnesses for the accused of him being a Good Guy
Cross-examined statement from a coworker (they work together at a forge at home, essentially as blacksmiths) about the moment when the accused told him he had killed his wife
Cross-examined statement from police, essentially explaining that the accused did not run away or deny killing his wife
Statements from former partners of the wife saying she was unstable
Statements from a psychologist saying she was unstable
Tearful evidence from the accused on the witness stand
The programme includes a lot of extra stuff where the juries discuss the evidence over coffee (which absolutely didn't happen in my experience) and relate it to their personal experiences.
Whether they actually sat through full days of evidence and cross-examination is hard to tell from the way the TV programme is edited.
I've not yet finished watching, and I hope they show the summing up from the judge and the directions on law (in respect to the charge and exactly what they are supposed to be discussing in the jury room) but I have serious doubts about the ability of these people to come to a consensus based on the presented evidence.
Overall, I'm totally unconvinced that a bunch of mouthy people who appear to have been chosen for a TV show because of... I don't know.. life experiences are really representative of a jury. Certainly the way they are behaving is totally unlike what I experienced in court.
The thing that has struck me about the TV show is that for a couple of jurors their views seem to be more governed by preconceptions based on their own backgrounds than on the evidence. And I do wonder if they all have the capacity to understand what they are hearing and to make an impartial judgement based on it.
Right, that also was my impression. They seem to be giving a lot of weight to the character statements (worth very little in my opinion), the demeanor of the accused when on the stand (who, let's not forget, is an actor) and personal experiences.
The case is about a murder charge and the accused is trying to make a partial defence of loss of control on which I read:
To succeed in establishing loss of control, you must show that you lost control pursuant to a ‘qualifying trigger’ in circumstances where a person of your sex and age, with a normal degree of tolerance and self-restraint might have acted in a similar way.
I've not seen all the evidence and was not on the jury and am not a lawyer. But I'm struggling to imagine that a normal person 'triggered' by an argument with thrown crockery would strangle the victim and bash their head in with a blacksmiths tool.
As far as I'm concerned that's the only point to discuss in the jury in this mock trial. All the other stuff is irrelevant.
To avoid discussion of the particulars of a show some of us haven't yet managed to watch, I've had some more thoughts on differences between jury trial and judge only. Which is one of public perception.
In the UK, the role of judge is mostly seen in sentencing (I know, there's a lot of other things they do during the trial, but it's most common to hear about the sentence given). There have been several recent examples of judges giving what's deemed to be a too lenient sentence, with large parts of the general public feeling that the judge got it wrong. If there's a judge only trial, would that "the judge got it wrong" public reaction be more common? Do the general public trust that a group of their peers are more likely to get a verdict right than a single judge or small panel of judges?
I guess it's a bit like the difference between a "fantasy share portfolio" and real investment. The correct tactics for "fantasy share portfolio" are to go all in on risky shares in order to win, because it doesn't really matter if you lose. But for real investment, the possible downside is a major consideration.
Likewise if you know that your "jury duty" is not real, but instead is to be broadcast as reality TV, the incentives for your behaviour are all different.
To avoid discussion of the particulars of a show some of us haven't yet managed to watch, I've had some more thoughts on differences between jury trial and judge only. Which is one of public perception.
In the UK, the role of judge is mostly seen in sentencing (I know, there's a lot of other things they do during the trial, but it's most common to hear about the sentence given). There have been several recent examples of judges giving what's deemed to be a too lenient sentence, with large parts of the general public feeling that the judge got it wrong. If there's a judge only trial, would that "the judge got it wrong" public reaction be more common? Do the general public trust that a group of their peers are more likely to get a verdict right than a single judge or small panel of judges?
I think most of these discussions about leniency are whipped up by conservative politicians (who let's not forget are in government, with a massive majority, and set the rules, laws and guidelines that the judges apply).
The fact is, in my opinion, that in most aspects of life we are content for serious and life-changing decisions to be made by trained professionals. If one has a serious heart complaint, the decision about a transplant is made by a professional or group of professionals. After a serious air accident, the conclusions about what happened and what should be done next is made by highly trained professionals.
What we don't do is drag 12 people off the street and ask them to decide whether x person should have a heart transplant or whether y aeroplane manufacturer should be fined for causing an accident.
But what we do do is to elect 600-odd non-experts and entrust them with the job of legislation and governance, overseeing the civil service "technocracy". We think it is vitally important to give authority to these fairly non-expert people so that they can be accountable to us, the almost entirely non-expert public.
But what we do do is to elect 600-odd non-experts and entrust them with the job of legislation and governance, overseeing the civil service "technocracy". We think it is vitally important to give authority to these fairly non-expert people so that they can be accountable to us, the almost entirely non-expert public.
What we don't do is drag 12 people off the street and ask them to decide whether x person should have a heart transplant or whether y aeroplane manufacturer should be fined for causing an accident.
Judges are experts in the law, or are supposed to be. They're not more expert than the rest of us about judging people in the more general sense involved in the things a jury does. In the attempted kidnapping case, two people told very different versions of a conversation that went on for the better part of an hour with no other witnesses. Better to have 12 people analyze that and come to a unanimous agreement through discussion than one person on their own.
In the US, the normal rule is that juries decide matters of fact (who to believe) and judges decide matters of law. Higher-level courts cannot normally second-guess matters of fact, although they might throw out an entire trial due to procedural errors.
In the US, the normal rule is that juries decide matters of fact (who to believe) and judges decide matters of law. Higher-level courts cannot normally second-guess matters of fact, although they might throw out an entire trial due to procedural errors.
Higher courts might also that there was no competent evidence to support a jury’s factual finding. But yes, as long as there is at least some competent evidence to support a jury’s finding, an appellate court is bound by that finding.
In the US, the normal rule is that juries decide matters of fact (who to believe) and judges decide matters of law. Higher-level courts cannot normally second-guess matters of fact, although they might throw out an entire trial due to procedural errors.
We watched the third of the four programmes last night. It's properly mind-bending stuff.
The point of law under discussion is a bit bizarre and relates to murder; the accused has been charged with murder, which he denies but accepts manslaughter (ie that he did kill the victim). He's offering a partial-defence to murder using the idea of "loss of control"
I'm going to discuss some of the details below so don't read it if you are able to watch and/or interested in the TV programme. Also mention of violent death but I will not be too graphic:
There are accepted facts. These are that a) the victim was in a wild angry episode and was throwing things at the accused. The accused subdued the victim by putting his hands around her throat until she lost consciousness. He then picked up a blacksmith's hammer and struck the victim in the head which eventually killed her.
The accused is arguing that he "lost control" at the moment of striking with the hammer and was triggered by extreme behaviour of the victim over the months since marriage.
Anyway, the difficulty here is that the prosecution have to show to reasonable doubt that the defendent was "in control" when the killing happened.
Which is a problem, because how can one ascertain that? Am I sure he hadn't "lost control"?
Also reading the way the law is written, the test is whether a similar person of similar tolerance to provocation would have acted similarly. Which appears to be asking whether an imaginary person put into the same extreme situation when "out of control" could/would have acted in this way. How does one tell that? One can assess what a reasonable person might do when acting normally, but how can one guess how a reasonable person under stress in a specific situation might act out-of-character?
And more to the point, without mind-reading how can anyone be "sure" of the state of mind of anyone killing anyone.
Here's another little bit we were discussing about the case in our "jury of 2"
The law says that for this defence to work, there has to be a trigger. And the suggestion is that the defendent wasn't "out of control" whilst strangling the victim because he was able to stop himself from killing her.
My wife then suggested that the trigger for the act of murder with the hammer was the near murder by strangulation.
Many of the complexities about the distinctions between murder and manslaughter derive from the days when the automatic sentence for murder was the rope.
Juries had to be given ways out of that because, faced with the thought of what they themselves might do under provocation, and also with defences built round various mental disorders, they might well otherwise find the accused not guilty altogether.
Although in later years, many death sentences were commuted, juries could not count on the Home Secretary to commute.
The public, and journalists and politicians, both of which should no better, not understanding this underlies the uproar there has been in the gutter press about the recent sentence of Valdo Calocane for randomly killing two students and a school caretaker in Nottingham. Once his mental disorders came to light, the decision was inevitable, and he'll almost certainly spend the rest of his life in a penal mental hospital.
There is an issue whether if health and social care were better funded in this cheese-paringly dismal Brexitist dump, he might not have been at large in the streets without anyone checking he was taking his medicines, but as an issue, that is a different one.
I've now watched all the episodes, my conclusions below
Imagine two scenarios:
First, a person is playing cards and another player is cheating. The person picks up a snooker cue and hits them with it until they are dead.
Second a person is locked in a sealed room with an abuser. The abuser falls asleep and the person uses a chair to hit them until they are dead. I'd suggest that in the second scenario most people would see this as an understandable response.
In the first, very few would.
In the case we are talking about from the TV programme, this guy has had a level of psychological abuse culminating in throwing crockery which escalated to a) him walking out of the house b) him coming back c) somehow strangling the victim to near death and d) then killing the unconscious victim by strikes with a hammer. Using the example of the reasonable person, I would say this is nearer my scenario 1 above than scenario 2 in the sense that it is hard to imagine anyone doing this. Most - probably almost everyone - would have reacted in a different way (run away, subdued the victim with less violence, crawled into a ball, struck the victim to knock her out etc) and therefore it isn't possible for the accused to hold this position with any credibility. Focusing on this aspect of what the law says, I think, crystalises my thoughts to 'murder' because the response to the provocation is way, way beyond what anyone else might do.
I really vacillated from one position to another, but I'm now 'sure' it was murder because of this reasoning.
I've also now watched the whole series. It was interesting but I've several issues with it.
First of all, it gave little sense of how court proceedings pan out. In stead of witnesses appearing in sequence telling their stories and being cross-examined, there were various shots of their versions being acted out on location, including dramatic (ghostly?) appearances of the deceased.
Second, some bits appeared to be in the wrong order. One witness seemed to appear twice. That's highly unusual and normally irregular. After all, in criminal trials in England and Wales, witnesses stay outside and don't hear anybody else's evidence before they are called.
Third, in the last episode, we saw bits of the prosecution and defence's final speeches, but the judge didn't seem to give any summing up or his directions to the jury at all. I assume in real life he did, but it's odd that the tele-version should skip such an important part of the trial.
Fourth, I've never been on a jury. For much of my life, until the law changed, I was barred from being on one. And nobody is allowed to know what happens in the jury room. But I'm inclined to suspect that @KoF's descriptions,
"One example: I'm pretty sure we were told to not discuss the evidence until we'd heard the whole case and were locked into the jury room. We certainly didn't sit around in breaks having arguments over cups of coffee.
As far as I recall we mostly sat in silence reading books or quietly had conversations about anything that wasn't the case."
and
"Overall, I'm totally unconvinced that a bunch of mouthy people who appear to have been chosen for a TV show because of... I don't know.. life experiences are really representative of a jury. Certainly the way they are behaving is totally unlike what I experienced in court."
are more typical. I certainly hope so.
I think what @TurquoiseTastic says about Fantasy Portfolios is wise.
I didn't agree with the talking head experts that were wheeled in from time to time. I certainly don't agree with the barrister who said he thought juries should give reasons. I can see why a barrister might think that as it gives plenty of excuses for lots of nice lucrative appeals.
Right at the end, there appeared on the screen in writing what the actual decision had been in the real case, which was manslaughter and 5½ years. I think that was probably about right.
Another thing I noticed was that the juries were wearing the same clothing for the duration. Which certainly strongly suggested to me that they were not presented a case over a week.
And the scenes of the jury room do not resemble anything I experienced.
On the experts, I thought there was a couple of things they said which looks wrong.
First, having looked carefully at the words in the relevant section of the law, the expert misstated what the words say. He said the test was what an ordinary person of similar circumstances would do in the same provocation* whereas the law says the test is what that ordinary person might do. The would/might thing makes a difference in how you assess the likelihood of actions in an extreme situation.
He also seemed a bit confusing about a majority verdict. I think he said that a majority verdict would mean a retrial, but that didn't appear to be the case when the jury came back with a 10-2 decision. Maybe this is only relevant in serious cases or something.
I just looked up and other murder verdicts in E&W have been on a 10-2 majority
* Which still makes no sense to me. If the point is whether one has lost control, that's cutting across what anyone would do
The defendant has entered a plea of “not guilty.” The fact that the defendant has been [indicted] [charged] is no evidence of guilt. Under our system of justice, when a defendant pleads “not guilty,” the defendant is not required to prove the defendant’s innocence; the defendant is presumed to be innocent. The State must prove to you that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
A reasonable doubt is a doubt based on reason and common sense, arising out of some or all of the evidence that has been presented, or lack or insufficiency of the evidence, as the case may be. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is proof that fully satisfies or entirely convinces you of the defendant’s guilt.
Meanwhile, am I understanding correctly from this thread that jurors in England and Wales can never talk about what happened during jury deliberations? Here, jurors cannot discuss the case or their deliberations while the case is ongoing, but that prohibition doesn’t extend beyond their discharge as jurors. Typically, particularly in higher profile cases, when the judge discharges and thanks the jury, she or he will tell them that they may discuss the case with others, including lawyers or the media, if they choose to, but they are also entitled not to discuss it. (This is petit juries/trial juries. Grand juries may not discuss deliberations even after they are discharged.)
Just came across this on a quiet Sunday evening. The first paragraph of the directions says what is not just correct here, but basically a direction which must be given; it's usual to add a short phrase that there is no burden of proof on the accused. There are a few odd cases where there is either an obligation upon an accused to have raised an issue for the prosecution to negative, or to raise evidence in answer.
Not so for the second quoted paragraph. Our High Court (equivalent to your Supreme Court) has clearly said that it is wrong for any such explanation of the concept or operation of "beyond reasonable doubt" to be given. In fact, the High Court has said that if an explanation is to be given following a request for guidance from the jury, all that can be said is that it's a simple phrase well within the jury's understanding. You might think that is not much of an answer to give to a genuinely concerned jury.
Another thing I noticed was that the juries were wearing the same clothing for the duration. Which certainly strongly suggested to me that they were not presented a case over a week.
And the scenes of the jury room do not resemble anything I experienced.
Yes the clothes thing really annoyed me, it was so obvious that this was actually more likely to have been filmed all on one day, which made all the 'good morning' sequences a definite fiction, so what else was?
And I agree, the chat in the coffee room was nothing like what I experienced on jury service, albeit that was 40 years ago!
In an irony that I'm blaming either a) a universe that hates me or b) my mother somehow jinxing the system because she thinks it is somehow good for me I've just had the letter to say that I've got to sit on another jury.
Apparently in England&Wales there's about a 25% lifetime chance of being called for a jury so it should be fairly rare for a second call up. In reality I'm wondering whether there's an impact of regionality (I'm guessing that one needs to live within a certain distance of the court), demographics (I live in an area with a lot of retirees who are too old),the fact my name is first on the electoral roll. Also I've got a good chance of being actually being selected (lots of people have excuses to get off jury service and unfortunately I don't) and it feels like there's a good chance it'll be bad.
Of course once it starts I won't be able to talk about it for the duration (and probably won't want to for some years afterwards). But then there's nothing to stop me talking about misgivings before the event. I do worry that I've somehow polluted my mind by watching this TV programme and thinking so hard about it.
I'm in Scotland, and I've been called for jury service 4 times (three times for the Sheriffs court, one of which I couldn't make as I'd already booked flights for some work in Japan, and once for the High Court). I've yet to actually sit on a jury though - which suggests a problem with calling more people than are needed, though they obviously need to call enough to ensure they have people to sit on all juries needed for that period.
I read that there's a near 95% chance of being called in Scotland!
The last time I did it, there was a crowd of people that received summons to attend but a large number were excused for one reason or another (I think mostly sickness or hardship, but I don't know specifically) so in the end almost everyone that was left ended up being on the jury. One guy didn't have a good excuse and was crestfallen because he couldn't afford to lose work and in the end "by magic" was in the handful who were not picked.
I read that there's a near 95% chance of being called in Scotland!
Indeed, in Scotland you have a lifetime chance of being called at about 95%, it's about 30% in England and Wales. But only about 30% of those called will actually sit on a jury (either because they've been excused or deferred, or turned up and not been one of the lucky 15), in England and Wales about 50% of those called will sit on a jury. Which does suggest that part of the higher rate of callups in Scotland is partly due to calling too many people at a time - but, also having juries of 15 rather than 12 will increase the need for jurors. I don't know if the proportion of trials requiring a jury is different, with Scotland having a greater number of jury trials per head of population.
A judge usually sat in the Black Country used to help the jury. He would often do a little cough and subtly shake his head when the defendent was giving evidence and subtly nod for prosecution witnesses.
A judge usually sat in the Black Country used to help the jury. He would often do a little cough and subtly shake his head when the defendent was giving evidence and subtly nod for prosecution witnesses.
I hope this was long ago. Because that's likely an effort to influence the jury, which is criminal.
A judge usually sat in the Black Country used to help the jury. He would often do a little cough and subtly shake his head when the defendent was giving evidence and subtly nod for prosecution witnesses.
I hope this was long ago. Because that's likely an effort to influence the jury, which is criminal.
A judge usually sat in the Black Country used to help the jury. He would often do a little cough and subtly shake his head when the defendent was giving evidence and subtly nod for prosecution witnesses.
I hope this was long ago. Because that's likely an effort to influence the jury, which is criminal.
It was in the good old days.
"Good" is, as they say, doing a lot of hard work there.
It feels like there's a fair amount of misunderstanding as to the role of a judge in a jury trial.
In modern times, in E&W and likely other jurisdictions of a similar mindset, it is generally accepted that judges cannot influence or direct juries to guilty verdicts.
It feels like there's a fair amount of misunderstanding as to the role of a judge in a jury trial.
In modern times, in E&W and likely other jurisdictions of a similar mindset, it is generally accepted that judges cannot influence or direct juries to guilty verdicts.
I did jury service some few years ago, and it was indeed an interesting experience.
We had four defendants before us (it was an assault/GBH case), and the judge could not have been more courteous or helpful towards us.
We found out later that the person allegedly assaulted was a rather nasty piece of work. We suspected as much, but - quite properly - nothing was said about any previous convictions.
The judge certainly did not influence us in the way that Telford described earlier, in what he refers to as the *good* old days. I wonder how many miscarriages of justice occurred as a result of that judge's influence?
It feels like there's a fair amount of misunderstanding as to the role of a judge in a jury trial.
In modern times, in E&W and likely other jurisdictions of a similar mindset, it is generally accepted that judges cannot influence or direct juries to guilty verdicts.
Of course they can't and the transcripts of the trials will show that there was no influence
Do the transcripts record "at this point the judge coughed and shook his head"? I thought that they only record what words are spoken, and by whom. The additional information a jury may observe - eg: the body language of the witness, or facial expressions of the defendant - won't be recorded but may well influence the jury in their deliberations. And, the sort of reaction you suggested a judge showed could also influence a jury in a manner unrecorded in the transcripts.
It feels like there's a fair amount of misunderstanding as to the role of a judge in a jury trial.
In modern times, in E&W and likely other jurisdictions of a similar mindset, it is generally accepted that judges cannot influence or direct juries to guilty verdicts.
Of course they can't and the transcripts of the trials will show that there was no influence
Do the transcripts record "at this point the judge coughed and shook his head"? I thought that they only record what words are spoken, and by whom. The additional information a jury may observe - eg: the body language of the witness, or facial expressions of the defendant - won't be recorded but may well influence the jury in their deliberations. And, the sort of reaction you suggested a judge showed could also influence a jury in a manner unrecorded in the transcripts.
I suspect this is bullshit because the barristers are literally looking at the judge much of the time and the defence would obviously think it was in the interests of their client to report judicial misconduct which led to a guilty verdict
Second if there were journalists in court (which there were many more of in the past) this would be a massive story.
Third if the judge did this over many different cases in his career this would mean many unsafe convictions.
Most of all if this was common knowledge to the extent that it was repeated by random people on social media, then the conspiracy would have to be massive to keep it quiet.
The judicial and court system is fucked up but it isn't that fucked up.
It feels like there's a fair amount of misunderstanding as to the role of a judge in a jury trial.
In modern times, in E&W and likely other jurisdictions of a similar mindset, it is generally accepted that judges cannot influence or direct juries to guilty verdicts.
Of course they can't and the transcripts of the trials will show that there was no influence
Do the transcripts record "at this point the judge coughed and shook his head"? I thought that they only record what words are spoken, and by whom. The additional information a jury may observe - eg: the body language of the witness, or facial expressions of the defendant - won't be recorded but may well influence the jury in their deliberations. And, the sort of reaction you suggested a judge showed could also influence a jury in a manner unrecorded in the transcripts.
Serious question: do you know how many people are in court for a criminal case? This judge would have to be sure none of these people would report the misconduct including a whole bunch of lawyers and court officials who have been there many times, police, the jury and even members of the public.
Are you trying to tell me that all of these people saw the judge being unfair and none of them did anything about it?
Telford may be right about the nudge-nudge, wink-wink etc. (after all, this was in the good old days), but the point is surely that these hints were not recorded - either in the transcripts, or by others at the time of the trial.
It sounds like a half-remembered anecdote from an episode of Rumpole of the Bailey seen decades ago about a fictional barrister in the central criminal court many decades before. Even if the story was based on any truth whatsoever, the whole point of the Rumpole character is that he absolutely didn't stand for any of that shit and would have absolutely trouced any judge who tried it.
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The prosecutor in the attempted kidnapping trial hung around in the hall afterwards to ask jurors why he had lost. I and a couple others answered his questions, but he was so stunned that he'd lost I didn't get the impression he took on board what we said.
One example: I'm pretty sure we were told to not discuss the evidence until we'd heard the whole case and were locked into the jury room. We certainly didn't sit around in breaks having arguments over cups of coffee.
As far as I recall we mostly sat in silence reading books or quietly had conversations about anything that wasn't the case.
The evidence is quite thin but includes:
Character witnesses for the accused of him being a Good Guy
Cross-examined statement from a coworker (they work together at a forge at home, essentially as blacksmiths) about the moment when the accused told him he had killed his wife
Cross-examined statement from police, essentially explaining that the accused did not run away or deny killing his wife
Statements from former partners of the wife saying she was unstable
Statements from a psychologist saying she was unstable
Tearful evidence from the accused on the witness stand
The programme includes a lot of extra stuff where the juries discuss the evidence over coffee (which absolutely didn't happen in my experience) and relate it to their personal experiences.
Whether they actually sat through full days of evidence and cross-examination is hard to tell from the way the TV programme is edited.
I've not yet finished watching, and I hope they show the summing up from the judge and the directions on law (in respect to the charge and exactly what they are supposed to be discussing in the jury room) but I have serious doubts about the ability of these people to come to a consensus based on the presented evidence.
Overall, I'm totally unconvinced that a bunch of mouthy people who appear to have been chosen for a TV show because of... I don't know.. life experiences are really representative of a jury. Certainly the way they are behaving is totally unlike what I experienced in court.
The case is about a murder charge and the accused is trying to make a partial defence of loss of control on which I read:
As far as I'm concerned that's the only point to discuss in the jury in this mock trial. All the other stuff is irrelevant.
Quote from: https://www.stuartmillersolicitors.co.uk/the-difference-between-manslaughter-and-murder/
In the UK, the role of judge is mostly seen in sentencing (I know, there's a lot of other things they do during the trial, but it's most common to hear about the sentence given). There have been several recent examples of judges giving what's deemed to be a too lenient sentence, with large parts of the general public feeling that the judge got it wrong. If there's a judge only trial, would that "the judge got it wrong" public reaction be more common? Do the general public trust that a group of their peers are more likely to get a verdict right than a single judge or small panel of judges?
Likewise if you know that your "jury duty" is not real, but instead is to be broadcast as reality TV, the incentives for your behaviour are all different.
I think most of these discussions about leniency are whipped up by conservative politicians (who let's not forget are in government, with a massive majority, and set the rules, laws and guidelines that the judges apply).
The fact is, in my opinion, that in most aspects of life we are content for serious and life-changing decisions to be made by trained professionals. If one has a serious heart complaint, the decision about a transplant is made by a professional or group of professionals. After a serious air accident, the conclusions about what happened and what should be done next is made by highly trained professionals.
What we don't do is drag 12 people off the street and ask them to decide whether x person should have a heart transplant or whether y aeroplane manufacturer should be fined for causing an accident.
I'm not entirely happy about that either.
Judges are experts in the law, or are supposed to be. They're not more expert than the rest of us about judging people in the more general sense involved in the things a jury does. In the attempted kidnapping case, two people told very different versions of a conversation that went on for the better part of an hour with no other witnesses. Better to have 12 people analyze that and come to a unanimous agreement through discussion than one person on their own.
The point of law under discussion is a bit bizarre and relates to murder; the accused has been charged with murder, which he denies but accepts manslaughter (ie that he did kill the victim). He's offering a partial-defence to murder using the idea of "loss of control"
I'm going to discuss some of the details below so don't read it if you are able to watch and/or interested in the TV programme. Also mention of violent death but I will not be too graphic:
The accused is arguing that he "lost control" at the moment of striking with the hammer and was triggered by extreme behaviour of the victim over the months since marriage.
Anyway, the difficulty here is that the prosecution have to show to reasonable doubt that the defendent was "in control" when the killing happened.
Which is a problem, because how can one ascertain that? Am I sure he hadn't "lost control"?
Also reading the way the law is written, the test is whether a similar person of similar tolerance to provocation would have acted similarly. Which appears to be asking whether an imaginary person put into the same extreme situation when "out of control" could/would have acted in this way. How does one tell that? One can assess what a reasonable person might do when acting normally, but how can one guess how a reasonable person under stress in a specific situation might act out-of-character?
And more to the point, without mind-reading how can anyone be "sure" of the state of mind of anyone killing anyone.
Here's another little bit we were discussing about the case in our "jury of 2"
My wife then suggested that the trigger for the act of murder with the hammer was the near murder by strangulation.
Which to me sounds ridiculous.
Juries had to be given ways out of that because, faced with the thought of what they themselves might do under provocation, and also with defences built round various mental disorders, they might well otherwise find the accused not guilty altogether.
Although in later years, many death sentences were commuted, juries could not count on the Home Secretary to commute.
The public, and journalists and politicians, both of which should no better, not understanding this underlies the uproar there has been in the gutter press about the recent sentence of Valdo Calocane for randomly killing two students and a school caretaker in Nottingham. Once his mental disorders came to light, the decision was inevitable, and he'll almost certainly spend the rest of his life in a penal mental hospital.
There is an issue whether if health and social care were better funded in this cheese-paringly dismal Brexitist dump, he might not have been at large in the streets without anyone checking he was taking his medicines, but as an issue, that is a different one.
First, a person is playing cards and another player is cheating. The person picks up a snooker cue and hits them with it until they are dead.
Second a person is locked in a sealed room with an abuser. The abuser falls asleep and the person uses a chair to hit them until they are dead. I'd suggest that in the second scenario most people would see this as an understandable response.
In the first, very few would.
In the case we are talking about from the TV programme, this guy has had a level of psychological abuse culminating in throwing crockery which escalated to a) him walking out of the house b) him coming back c) somehow strangling the victim to near death and d) then killing the unconscious victim by strikes with a hammer. Using the example of the reasonable person, I would say this is nearer my scenario 1 above than scenario 2 in the sense that it is hard to imagine anyone doing this. Most - probably almost everyone - would have reacted in a different way (run away, subdued the victim with less violence, crawled into a ball, struck the victim to knock her out etc) and therefore it isn't possible for the accused to hold this position with any credibility. Focusing on this aspect of what the law says, I think, crystalises my thoughts to 'murder' because the response to the provocation is way, way beyond what anyone else might do.
I really vacillated from one position to another, but I'm now 'sure' it was murder because of this reasoning.
First of all, it gave little sense of how court proceedings pan out. In stead of witnesses appearing in sequence telling their stories and being cross-examined, there were various shots of their versions being acted out on location, including dramatic (ghostly?) appearances of the deceased.
Second, some bits appeared to be in the wrong order. One witness seemed to appear twice. That's highly unusual and normally irregular. After all, in criminal trials in England and Wales, witnesses stay outside and don't hear anybody else's evidence before they are called.
Third, in the last episode, we saw bits of the prosecution and defence's final speeches, but the judge didn't seem to give any summing up or his directions to the jury at all. I assume in real life he did, but it's odd that the tele-version should skip such an important part of the trial.
Fourth, I've never been on a jury. For much of my life, until the law changed, I was barred from being on one. And nobody is allowed to know what happens in the jury room. But I'm inclined to suspect that @KoF's descriptions, and are more typical. I certainly hope so.
I think what @TurquoiseTastic says about Fantasy Portfolios is wise.
I didn't agree with the talking head experts that were wheeled in from time to time. I certainly don't agree with the barrister who said he thought juries should give reasons. I can see why a barrister might think that as it gives plenty of excuses for lots of nice lucrative appeals.
Right at the end, there appeared on the screen in writing what the actual decision had been in the real case, which was manslaughter and 5½ years. I think that was probably about right.
And the scenes of the jury room do not resemble anything I experienced.
First, having looked carefully at the words in the relevant section of the law, the expert misstated what the words say. He said the test was what an ordinary person of similar circumstances would do in the same provocation* whereas the law says the test is what that ordinary person might do. The would/might thing makes a difference in how you assess the likelihood of actions in an extreme situation.
He also seemed a bit confusing about a majority verdict. I think he said that a majority verdict would mean a retrial, but that didn't appear to be the case when the jury came back with a 10-2 decision. Maybe this is only relevant in serious cases or something.
I just looked up and other murder verdicts in E&W have been on a 10-2 majority
* Which still makes no sense to me. If the point is whether one has lost control, that's cutting across what anyone would do
Just came across this on a quiet Sunday evening. The first paragraph of the directions says what is not just correct here, but basically a direction which must be given; it's usual to add a short phrase that there is no burden of proof on the accused. There are a few odd cases where there is either an obligation upon an accused to have raised an issue for the prosecution to negative, or to raise evidence in answer.
Not so for the second quoted paragraph. Our High Court (equivalent to your Supreme Court) has clearly said that it is wrong for any such explanation of the concept or operation of "beyond reasonable doubt" to be given. In fact, the High Court has said that if an explanation is to be given following a request for guidance from the jury, all that can be said is that it's a simple phrase well within the jury's understanding. You might think that is not much of an answer to give to a genuinely concerned jury.
Yes the clothes thing really annoyed me, it was so obvious that this was actually more likely to have been filmed all on one day, which made all the 'good morning' sequences a definite fiction, so what else was?
And I agree, the chat in the coffee room was nothing like what I experienced on jury service, albeit that was 40 years ago!
Apparently in England&Wales there's about a 25% lifetime chance of being called for a jury so it should be fairly rare for a second call up. In reality I'm wondering whether there's an impact of regionality (I'm guessing that one needs to live within a certain distance of the court), demographics (I live in an area with a lot of retirees who are too old),the fact my name is first on the electoral roll. Also I've got a good chance of being actually being selected (lots of people have excuses to get off jury service and unfortunately I don't) and it feels like there's a good chance it'll be bad.
Of course once it starts I won't be able to talk about it for the duration (and probably won't want to for some years afterwards). But then there's nothing to stop me talking about misgivings before the event. I do worry that I've somehow polluted my mind by watching this TV programme and thinking so hard about it.
Sorry for venting.
1 in 16 chance. Going to happen quite a lot in reality.
The last time I did it, there was a crowd of people that received summons to attend but a large number were excused for one reason or another (I think mostly sickness or hardship, but I don't know specifically) so in the end almost everyone that was left ended up being on the jury. One guy didn't have a good excuse and was crestfallen because he couldn't afford to lose work and in the end "by magic" was in the handful who were not picked.
1/4 * 1/4 - basic probability calculation of two independent events both occurring.
Oh yeah, sorry I missed the obvious.
I hope this was long ago. Because that's likely an effort to influence the jury, which is criminal.
It was in the good old days.
"Good" is, as they say, doing a lot of hard work there.
In modern times, in E&W and likely other jurisdictions of a similar mindset, it is generally accepted that judges cannot influence or direct juries to guilty verdicts.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Wang
Of course they can't and the transcripts of the trials will show that there was no influence
We had four defendants before us (it was an assault/GBH case), and the judge could not have been more courteous or helpful towards us.
We found out later that the person allegedly assaulted was a rather nasty piece of work. We suspected as much, but - quite properly - nothing was said about any previous convictions.
The judge certainly did not influence us in the way that Telford described earlier, in what he refers to as the *good* old days. I wonder how many miscarriages of justice occurred as a result of that judge's influence?
Good point.
https://www.complaints.judicialconduct.gov.uk/makeacomplaint/
Second if there were journalists in court (which there were many more of in the past) this would be a massive story.
Third if the judge did this over many different cases in his career this would mean many unsafe convictions.
Most of all if this was common knowledge to the extent that it was repeated by random people on social media, then the conspiracy would have to be massive to keep it quiet.
The judicial and court system is fucked up but it isn't that fucked up.
Which is exactly the point @Telford was making.
Are you trying to tell me that all of these people saw the judge being unfair and none of them did anything about it?
Telford may be right about the nudge-nudge, wink-wink etc. (after all, this was in the good old days), but the point is surely that these hints were not recorded - either in the transcripts, or by others at the time of the trial.