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Juries In Uk

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The judiciary is an independent arm of the government that ought to operate without influence or threats from the government or any other organization. The independence of the judiciary ensures it executes legal matters without bias and within the jurisdiction of the law. In England, sources of law include “legislation, common law, and European Union law” (Judiciary.gov.uk, 2016 n.d). Juries play significant roles in ensuring fair trials within the legal framework of the country’s constitution. Juries became an integral part of the judicial system as early as 1215 the same year that Magna Carta acknowledged the right to free trial through judgment by peers. Today, “lawyers invoke Magna Carta’s heritage in their briefs and summations in jury …show more content…

However, the age limit act was amended by the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The act states that a person who serves on the jury must be between eighteen years old and seventy-five years old. This amendment increased the age limit in serving in the jury thus giving an opportunity to the majority of the citizens to participate in the service. Giving a small group of people the chance to the jury service while locking others outside received criticism from the members of the society who felt denied the chance to exercise their democratic rights. If the defendant pleads guilty, the jury service is not needed. In such a scenario, the judge has an easy time of giving a sentence as stipulated in the law. However, if the defendant pleads innocent, the jury service is required. The jury listens to the evidence and facts presented and makes decisions based on those facts while the judge makes decisions from the legal a perspective. Over the past years, there has been a heated debate on the significance of juries in petty cases. A senior court of appeal judge argued that juries should be abolished in trials of petty crimes (Rudgard, 2017). According to the judge’s arguments which were substantially true, she stated that an entire jury trial could cost a lot of money to listen to a petty trial and that would be wastage of public funds which could be channeled to other public sectors such as the education

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515 Words | 3 Pages

Jurors should not know anything about a specific case and not follow public affairs and read the news (Doc F). When a person is selected to be part of a jury, they have to say an oath stating that they will not use their emotions to determine the verdict of a trial. If a juror is caught using their emotions, they will be fined for a crime called perjury. Since there are twelve people in a jury, there is a variation of opinions when the jury decides a verdict. But, a judge is more professional and knows how to only use the evidence provided and be less biased.

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On the 14th of October 2011, Mr Rayney had submitted an application for a trial which only involved a judge without a jury present. This was due Mr. Rayney assuming that a strong bias had been manifested pre-trial as a result of the subjective publicity revolving around the death of his wife, Corryn(The Conversation, 2012). Therefore, the jury and any member of the public would already have preconceived views in favour of Mr Rayney being guilty of murdering his wife. The trial was successful for Mr Rayney where he was acquitted of murdering his wife. Similarly, this issue is somewhat common as it had also occurred in the case Evans v The State of Western Australia [2011] WASCA 182, in which both appellants had made appeals after being convicted for murder.

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This trial was viewed as an opportunity to challenge the authority of the law and to publicize the accuracy

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With a jury that cares about everything but the trial, how is the defendant suppose to be given a fair trial? He isn’t. The last piece of evidence is cartoon 3, where a dog is being judged by his natural enemies, feline (Document E). These ‘jurors’ all hate the dog and no matter what the evidence is, the dog will be guilty. It applies to our system with the notion that a suspect is hated by jurors because the media accuses them of being guilty before the trial begins.

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Like the Electoral College, several of the plans made by the Founding Fathers have lost some of their practicality. What worked in the past does not always work in the future, and this is the case for the jury system. The sole reason it was created was to ensure that each citizen was guaranteed a fair trial, which was a main concern due to Britain’s monarchy. In modern times, however, the judicial branch of the United States could easily give every citizen a fair trial with only a judge presiding over the case. It is clear that bench trials are superior to trials by jury because the citizens on juries are unqualified or biased, its benefits do not outweigh its burdens, and its claim to encourage civic duty is false.

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The concept of a trial by one’s peers and the due process under the law has its roots from the Magna Carta, written way back in 1215. The Magna Carta also lay the basis for checks and balances, which is the concept that American government was founded on. Moving forward, before the late 1600’s in England, only a judge would give verdicts, and many judges would give verdicts in the favor of the King. This obviously led to many injustices and was a form of tyranny. However, around the late 1600s, people of England could have a trial by jury to determine cases of common law, which led to fair trials.

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154 Words | 1 Pages

In The Children of E4, we learn about the main character, Jeremy. He is an inner city Puerto Rican third grader from Hartford, Connecticut. With an Aunt, Grandmother, and Ms. Lois Luddy, his teacher, all want him to do well in life and especially in school. I predict Jeremy with his strong support system and a good head on his shoulders will find the correct path to his future! I’m hoping Ms. Luddy continues to help the family after Jeremy gets done with elementary school.

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Another reason citizens question juries is that they have bias from personal experience or the media. The defendant and the prosecution criticize the jury system because the actual jurors may not understand the situation from any point of view because they come from different lifestyles (Doc E). The American jury system is not a good idea anymore because juries are not experts in law, they have bias, and are not “a jury of peers”. Because jurors are not experts in law, they are subject to be

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7th Amendment to the Constitution The 7th amendment to the constitution of the United States was formulated and then ratified as a part of the famous Bill of Rights. This specific Amendment defines a citizen’s right to trial by a jury and in the Bill of Rights, it is mentioned quite frequently. It was fundamentally designed to prevent the establishment of dictatorial courts of justice, where the judges’ decisions were subjected to the control and whims of the government. Just as the first ten amendments to the constitution of the United States, the seventh amendment also plays a prominent role in the American legal and political theory.

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However they are wrong because some people will not take it serious as it need to be. Citizens should not be required to serve on jury because bias jurors. For example, in the play “Twelve Angry Men” during the deliberation of the verdict some of the jurors showed bias toward the young man on trial because of where he was from. “We 're not here to go into the reasons why slums are

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The grand jury is an institution that has long played a vital role in criminal justice systems, specifically as it relates to the indictment and prosecution of alleged criminals. The grand jury originated in 1166, with the enactment of the Assize Clarendon, by King Henry II of Britain (McSweeney, 2014). The Assize Clarendon, mandated that a “jury of twelve good and lawful men”, be periodically convened, to investigate and inform the king’s justices; whether they had knowledge of or suspected community members of having committed a crime (Segal, Spivack, & Costilo, 1996). Previous to the enactment of the Assize Clarendon, the Catholic Church and nobility decided criminal cases by means of, “trial by ordeal or trial by battle or trial by compurgation” (Hurnard, 1941). Subsequent to the enactment of the Assize Clarendon, English law adopted an evidentiary model, in which evidence, assessment, and investigation was made by laymen, knights or ordinary freemen, under oath (Hurnard, 1941).

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Judges has various roles and2 duties in the constitutional democracy of Canada. They interpret the law, assess the evidence presented, and control how hearings and trials unfold in their courtrooms. Most important of all, judges are impartial decision-makers in the pursuit of justice. (Canadian Superior Courts Judges Association, n.d.). The Canadian Judiciary is an adversarial system of justice and the legal cases are challenged between opposing sides, which assures that evidences and legal disputes will be completely and forcefully presented.

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The Auld Report by Lord Justice (2001) suggests some cases should be without a jury. This is as Lord Justice views complex cases such as, fraud as too serious and difficult for juries to come to understand leading

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In this paragraph, the advantages and disadvantages of trial by jury will be discussed. The main advantages are that juries introduce community values into the legal process and can influence the system (Joyce, 2013); they can achieve a sense of equity and fairness without enforcing unjust laws; in addition, juries are independent and neutral (Davies, 2015). Moreover, they guarantee participation from the public in a democratic institution (Hostettler, 2004), and represent the population thanks to the randomness with which jurors are decided (Davies, 2015). On the other hand, the most important disadvantages are that jurors have no prior contact with the courts, no training (Hostettler, 2004) and therefore they lack knowledge of law, courtroom proceedings (Joyce, 2013), and lack of ability to understand the legal directions (Thomas, 2010). Moreover, they must face evidence which is highly technical (Hostettler, 2004).

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[5] Common law works in a different way, the judges rather than the Parliament make common law or ‘judge-made law’. Considering criminal and civil cases, the judges take decisions based on the stare decisis principle (Latin “to stand by things decided”, the legal principle of determining points in litigation according to precedent [4]), deliver rulings and create precedents, thus applying the law to real life situations. Therefore, the value of the precedent is very high in the English Common Law system. The strengths of common law

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