Problems of the Jury Facing Science - Essay Example

of the of the Concerned 29 November 2008 What Problems does the Jury face when Science Enters the Courtroom The rise of the scientific temperament is considered to be the hallmark of the Western civilization. To a great extent, such a claim stands justified in the sense that scientific approaches towards life have drastically altered the way people plan and do things. Manifold are the bounties of science and science has brought multiple advantages to the West in particular and to the rest of the world in general. The proponents of science hold that science is a way of life that is based on solid facts, data and experimentation. That is why the scientific theories and dogmas enjoy much higher levels of veracity and credibility as compared to other academic disciplines. So much so, that scientific approach towards research and experimentation has been incorporated within the ambit of other disciplines and fields of enquiry like sociology, history, economics, jurisprudence, psychology, etc. The fact is that science has infiltrated every aspect of life and human existence and today there exists practically no social institution or concern that is devoid of scientific methods and approaches. Especially in the realm of law, science has brought about an unprecedented change and revolution. In the 21st century, scientific evidence is legitimately welcomed and accommodated in all the courts of law and it holds a credibility and veracity about which there exists no doubt. The scientific community has also promptly responded to this new challenge and responsibility by developing new disciplines like forensics that specifically cater to the realm of law and the techniques like finger print evidence, DNA fingerprinting, etc hold an almost unchallenged recognition in the courts of law. With the digitization of the economies and scientific orientation of the means and ways of production, the courts of law are often required to contend with the litigations that require considerable amounts of scientific data and inputs. There is no denying the fact that the courts in the West have over the centuries, incorporated certain cardinal instruments within their frameworks and the jury is one such integral aspect of such legal frameworks. For good or for bad, the litigations requiring scientific data and discussion are not devoid of the decisive influence of juries and the concerned scientific evidence furnished in such cases is as much open to analysis by the jury as by judges, lawyers, litigants and other parties involved. The entrance of science in the courtrooms has given way to a plethora of questions, apprehensions and doubts. Infact this new trend has exposed the jury to attacks and aspersions from various quarters of the society and intelligentsia. Such pressure groups, while citing the complexity and intricacy involved in the conception and understanding of scientific evidence as a valid excuse claim that the contemporary system of assorting juries that seldom requires and asks for relevant qualifications and scientific knowhow, has literally rendered the institution of jury as totally obsolete, especially in the court cases that involve considerable amounts of scientific evidence and theoretical arguments and discussions. Such claims need to be qualified in the light of the basic objectives that led to the introduction of the institution of jury in the English legal system. It is imperative for the so called champions of science to understand that the jury is essentially a political institution and serves specific purposes in the democratic societies (Edmond and Mercer 331). Leaving the practical aspects of justice aside, a stiff opposition from the so called adherents of science is the biggest problem that the institution of jury faces in the 21st century. The reasons cited by such elements will be dealt with later on in this paper. First and foremost it is important to understand the political and democratic relevance of the jury in the Western legal system, which necessitates its existence even in the age of scientific evidence and expert opinions. The jury as a legal system existed much before the Norman invasion of England (Edmond and Mercer 330). In line with the vibrant nature of the English legal system, the functions and the framework of jury evolved over the following centuries. Especially in the wake of the Lateran Council in 1215, which debarred the participation of the Church in trials by ordeal, the relevance and the need of the jury in the courts of law augmented manifold (Edmond and Mercer 330). Still the jury of those days was susceptible to the constraints and the debilitating consequences enforced by the English legal system. However, by the late middle ages, it became a convention to select jurors who had no personal knowledge or interest in the case under consideration (Edmond and Mercer 330). This tradition had a conclusive impact on the English legal system so far as the goal of democratization of the courts of law was concerned. From then onwards, the perception of jury in the mass consciousness assumed the role of an upholder of the liberty in the face of the repression by the traditional feudal system of governess (Edmond and Mercer 330). In that context, the jury assured the participation and interference of the laity in the institutions and instruments of state law. The importance given by the masses to the institution of jury owes much to the pivotal role played by the motivated juries and the jurors in restraining the political interference in a number of important litigations. The place of jury in our constitutional history does not rest on a nave belief that every verdict must be true. It rests upon a total view of the relation between the legislature, judiciary and the people; upon a notion of justice in which the law must be made to seem rational and humane to lay jurors (hence inhibiting a thousand oppressive processes before they are ever commenced); and upon a particular history of contests between 'the people' and the Crown or State, in which the jury has won and reserved for itself, in its verdict, a final power (Edmond and Mercer 331) Thus subjugating the jury to the domination of scientific experts and critics will mean the replacement of the feudal and theocratic constraints over the courts by technocracy. Hence the jury is the vital instrument of hope against all forms of political, theocratic and technocratic repression or manipulation of the legal system. There is no dearth of groups and intellectuals in the contemporary times who vociferously uphold the relevance of jury in the face of an onslaught of the scientific and technical evidence (Edmond and Mercer 333). Some of them justify the relevance of the jury by debating that the juries are not bound by any considerations to validate any strictly legalistic or technical interpretation of the law (Edmond and Mercer 333). Hence the juries are not subject to the requirements of an immaculate scientific literacy. The primary function of the jury is to interpret the law in the lay man's language so as to make it comprehensible and relevant to the masses (Edmond and Mercer 333). There exists one other school of thought that argues that the juries are most of the times sufficiently competent to handle the scientific evidence brought before them and thus they perform the important function of simplifying the intricacies introduced by the scientific and technical evidence in the courts (Edmond and Mercer 334). In that context the efficacy and the efficiency of the jury can be enhanced by making relevant reforms in certain areas of jury administration, which involve authorizing the jury to take notes during trials, providing juries with the related scientific literature and the assistance of the officially appointed and unbiased experts, extending pre trial instructions to the jury and a few other such simple measures (Edmond and Mercer 335). There are many experts who uphold the relevance of jury, but decry its credibility before any form of technical evidence presented in the courts owing to the high levels of scientific illiteracy rampant amongst the masses from which the jury is usually selected (Edmond and Mercer 337). They try to address this problem by advocating an enhanced dissemination of the scientific knowledge amongst the masses (Edmond and Mercer 337). Such groups claim credibility on the ground of some recent surveys conducted in the United States and the Great Britain that reflected a pathetically low level of scientific literacy amongst the masses (Edmond and Mercer 337). Infact this dilemma has given way to an intense debate in the US that criticizes the validity of the Seventh Amendment assuring a trial by jury before the requirements of the Fifth Amendment that calls for a fair, well informed and rational consideration of the evidence presented before the courts (Edmond and Mercer 3387). On the contrary, many critics believe that it is the preponderance of the juries in the courts with negligible scientific literacy that has lead to the deluging of the courts by 'junk science' evidence (Edmond and Mercer 339). The technocrats being cognizant of the fact that most of the times the jury is utterly oblivious of the scientific credibility of the evidence presented in the court, resort to confusing or manipulating the jury by introducing a spate of nonsensical technical evidence in the courts. Yet the fact is that the adherents of such views have little to flaunt in terms of authentic and reliable studies and most of the times they tacitly intend to support the interests of industry and powerful corporations, by obfuscating the need for public scrutiny with loads of technical jargon (Edmond and Mercer 340). They forget that social institutions like the jury cater to a much holistic grasp over the social realities, which supersedes the test tube model of "public understanding of science" (Edmond and Mercer 341). Therefore the relevance of the jury in such times of scientific elitism, when the technical knowledge is condensed in the hands of a few vested interests in the society, has augmented to exponential proportions. Opponents of the jury consistently refer to the inconsistent jury verdict in the 'Bendectin trials' in the US to lend credibility to their aspersions and vociferously suggest many technical alternatives to the lay jury trials. They do forget to mention that 'Bendectin trials' extended over a long period of time, in the course of which, methodical changes were made in the configuration of experts, presentation of factual evidence, nature of damage claims, orientation of issues that specifically led to the change of context in each individual case and hence an inconsistent jury verdict (Edmond and Mercer 345). The very fact that scientific dogmas and approaches are designed and conceptualized by humans makes them vulnerable and liable to inbuilt and sometimes deliberately planted flaws (Edmond 555). This challenges the "ostensibly objective, impartial, and entirely method predicted" image of science (Edmond 555). The Australian dingo baby case of Rv. Chamberlain amply validates this fact. Thus science is as much vulnerable to ideological influences and can be tampered by political and commercial interests (Edmond 555). In that sense the institution of jury facilitates a salubrious and meaningful interaction between the scientific evidence, alternate disciplines and approaches and cherished social aspirations to arrive at some sort of acceptable conclusion. Besides, the technocrats and the scientific experts also need to be cognizant of the onus to develop apt systems and models of communication that can easily and effortlessly be trusted by the lay jury. It is not something that they will be doing for the first time. The example of the latent fingerprint examiners do deserves a special mention in this regard who successfully developed the appropriate methods and means to present their conclusively scientific evidence in a matter of fact format before the jury (Cole 704). The increasing inclusion of the scientific temperament in the social and political mores and institutions in no way invalidates the relevance of institutions that evolved over a long period of time and are backed by democratic and mass aspirations. The jury is one such institution that will and must continue to retain its utility in the contemporary scientific era. Infact the emergence of problems and objections will only boost its evolutionary urge, which it has definitely managed to preserve amidst the vagaries of times. Total Words: 2,040 Works Cited Cole, Simon A. "Witness Identification: Latent Fingerprinting Evidence and Expert Knowledge". Social Studies of Science. V. 28 (1998): pp.687-712 Edmond, Gary. "Science, Law and Narrative: Helping the Facts to Speak for Themselves". Southern Illinois University Law Journal. V. 23 (1998): pp: 555-583 Edmond, Gary and Mercer, David. "Scientific Literacy and the jury: Reconsidering Jury Competence". Public Understanding of Science. V.6 (1997): pp.329-359 Read More