The Place of a Jury Trial in Modern - Essay Example

The Place of a Jury Trial in Modern Introduction Throughout history, law has been the underlying factor that has governed society. The law enforced varies depending on the region and doctrine of a region, for example, a socialist and a communist region. However, every law has its provision for settlement of disputes. In any modern society, disputes are settled by virtue of a trial. A trial can therefore be described as the coming together of two parties to a dispute. The aim of the two parties is to present compelling information in the form of evidence. This evidence is presented before a tribunal which has been mandated by law to adjudicate the claims or disputes of the parties. In our modern society, the most common and globally accepted tribunal is a court. The presentation of evidence, or the tribunal, is presided over by a judge. However, certain tribunals occur in the presence of a judge and a jury. There are 2 major different types of trials; these are a bench trial, and a jury trial. A bench trial is a trial in which the presentation of evidence is done solely before a judge or a panel of judges. The judge(s) listens to the disputes of the two parties, analyses the evidence presented and depending on how compelling the evidence is, passes judgment either in favour of either party or dismisses the case. In essence, in a bench trial, the judge or panel of judges has the ultimate power. In a jury trial, the court proceedings are held in front of both the judge and the jury. A jury is a team of members in the community, usually made up of 12 people, who are chosen to give a verdict on a legal case that is presented before them in a court of law. The jury can either make the verdict or present their findings of facts to the judge for application in his ruling (Spooner, 1852, p. 6). The History of Jury Trials In Britain and The UK Jury is an English word which comes from the word juror which means somebody who has taken oath. The word originated from France with its original name being jurer. Historians cannot, for a fact, verify that the jury system existed in England prior to the 1100’s. However, it is well known that the right to trial by jury can be traced back to Magna Carta. It was also known as The Great Charter of the Liberties of England. This was an Angevin charter which was used in the year 1215 in its original language, Latin. The Norman system of having witnesses who knew about a matter to tell a court of law what they knew under oath, was established in England by William the Conqueror. At this particular moment, the function of the jury was totally different from what it is today. The post-Norman jury had two jury had two core functions. The first core function of the medieval jury was to partially define what the law was. This definition was to be referenced to the standards of behaviour in the society and the norms as perceived by the local society. Secondly, the jury was to establish, by virtue of personal knowledge of defendant, if the defendant had committed the conduct complained of or not. The post-Norman jury’s duties or functions were therefore mixed up; they determined the law and at the same time determined guilt on the basis of personal or prior knowledge of the accused. In the 12th century, juries were a King’s tool. The Kings used to employ a jury to determine the guilt of a defendant. Their findings were aimed at answering the questions which the King had directed to them with regard to the issue at hand. Basically, a jury was put in place to advice the king and his officials. The decision making role was only designated for the king and his officials after they received facts from the jury. The role of the jury evolved over the next two centuries from that of advising to that of a decider of facts; a role that it has maintained up to date. However, during this two century period, the jury did not have ultimate freedom to make a decision pertaining a matter. This is because some of the members of the jury were biased and they therefore manipulated the outcome of a decision. Also, the jury had to make a decision that appeased the members of a society, which in most cases was a guilty verdict. The jury was therefore working under the leash of the society trying to prove the guilt of a defendant rather than determining it. Members of the jury in most cases gave a guilty verdict failure to which they could face imprisonment and be fined. As the law continued to progress, courts begun to loosen up and allowed members of the public to dispute or object certain members being seated on a jury (Hostetller, 2004). The jury however attained independence from these restraints and from the judge late in the 17th century. This independence was established in Bushel’s case of 1670. Bushel’s case arose from a previous case which involved two Quakers, William Penn and William Mead. The two Quakers were arrested in August of 1670 and charged with unlawful assembly. They were accused of violating the conventicle act, an act which forbade the assembly of more than five people, in the name of religion, outside the auspices of the Church of England. After presentation of the arguments, the jury found the two men guilty of speaking in Grace-church Street but dismissed the clause “to an unlawful assembly”. This verdict infuriated the judge who in turn ordered the jury to pass a verdict that the court would appease the court, lest they not be dismissed. The jury, being at the mercy of the judge and the court, modified their verdict and found the two Quakers guilty of speaking to an assembly in Grace-church Street. The result of this modified verdict was a 2 day apprehension in the cell without food. Penn, one of the Quakers, disputed this move by the judge and upon protesting, the judge ordered him to be bound and gagged. After the two days, the jury completely changed their verdict to not guilty and the judge found them to be in contempt of court because they had returned a verdict that was contrary to their findings of fact. Penn yet again protested as the judge’s verdict was a violation of the Magna Carta. All the members of the jury were expected to pay a fine but one member of the jury, Edward Bushel, refused to pay up the fine as ordered by the judge. Bushel petitioned to the Court of Common Pleas for a writ of habeas corpus; he was requesting the judge to be arrested and be brought before a court. Writs at the time were issued by the Kings bench and therefore the Chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas initially refused the writ to be granted. Despite this refusal of the grant being issued, the chief justice ruled that the jury could not be punished on account of the verdict that it returned (Kelly, Karlin&Wegemer, 2011. p. 113-114). The Modern Day Jury in Britain As pointed out earlier, the jury system made its way to Britain after the Norman conquest. The functions of the jury at that time were quite different from the functions of today’s jury. Initially, jurors were witnesses who provided sources on information on local affairs. However, their role evolved to that of adjudicators used in the settling of both civil and criminal disputes. Under Henry II, the jury begun to take on a more important role of deliberating on the evidence presented by the parties involved in a dispute. For this reason, jurors were expected to be as neutral as possible. They were expected to have as little as possible knowledge about the facts of a case before trial and this has been gradually accepted and is the position today. The jury’s core function is to weigh the evidence that is presented to them in a court of law and decide whether the facts presented are true or not. The jury makes their decision in line with the relevant law pertaining an issue as pointed out to them by the judge. The verdict of the jury varies depending on the nature of the dispute; civil or criminal. In a criminal case, the jury gives a guilty or not guilty verdict. If their verdict is guilty, then the judge is left to decide on the sentence. In a civil dispute, the jury’s task is to determine how much money is to be awarded in damages (Hostetller, 2004). There are two major types of juries. They are the petit jury, and the grand jury (Roesch, Zapf & Hart, 2009. P. 182). A grand jury is comprised of a minimum of 11 or 12 jurors and a maximum of about 23. A Grand jury is confined almost exclusively to federal courts. A grand jury sits in a closed court and listens to the evidence that the complainant brings forward. They determine whether the facts presented to them provide enough evidence for a criminal trial to proceed. If the evidence is compelling enough, then an indictment is issued. A grand jury does not require that the suspect be notified of the proceedings. The reason for this is because grand juries can be used for filling charges in the form of sealed indictments. The other type is a petit jury, also known as a trial jury. A petit jury comprises of a minimum of 5 jurors and a maximum of 12. A petit jury hears the evidence presented by both the complainant and the respondent. They evaluate the facts that are presented to them. They evaluate these facts on the basis of an instruction from the judge about the law pertaining to the issue at hand. After hearing the evidence, the jurors retire for deliberation to consider a verdict. The majority required for a verdict will vary with cases. Some may require a unanimous verdict while others are passed by a majority vote of the jurors. When the jury was unveiled, a person’s eligibility for service used to depend on the property qualification. The jury selection process was accused of being biased because the jurors were predominantly male, were middle-aged and were of middle class. However, this selection criteria has changed over the years. If a person wishes to be selected as a juror today in Britain and the UK, they must be between the ages of 18 and 70 years. Secondly, the applicant must have presided in the country for at least 5 from the age of 13 years. The juries act 1976, established more criteria for qualification under law. Part 1 of the first schedule of the act categorises people who are ineligible for a position in the jury. There are four categories. The first category of persons ineligible to be a juror is if the person serves in the judiciary. The second category comprises of people who are involved in the administration of justice or are in the legal profession. For example, the probation service. The third category of ineligibles is clergy men and the fourth and final category are the mentally ill. These categories were as a result of amendment of the act by the juries disqualifications act 1984. Part 2 of the juries act 1976also outlines disqualification criteria. Persons who have been sentenced in the United Kingdom for more than 5 years are disqualified from applying for a position in the jury. This part also disqualifies any person who has served any part of a sentence within the period of decade from the time of application. Also, if a person has been in probation within a period of five years from the time of application or is currently on bail in criminal proceedings, then the person is disqualified from being a juror. Under part three of Schedule 1 act 1976, eligible jurors are given a right to excuse themselves from the jury service. This right is granted to a juror if they have more crucial issues to attend to. For example, if a soldier is selected to be a juror and in the course of a trial they are called on official duty, then this right is extended to them. Finally, according to the 1976 act, the selection process of jurors is a random process. The jurors are selected from the list of registered voters. This therefore means that the number one and most basic qualification is that one has to be a registered voter. After they are selected from the list of registered voters, they are vetted against the disqualifiers to determine if they are fit for the position or not (Gibson, Cavadino& Faulkner, p. 170). This random selection was a strategy of eliminating unequal representation in juries. Though the representation has tremendously been changed to achieve equality, there is still an aspect of inadequate representation of minorities in today’s jury. More so, there is a possibility that the random selection may create a biased situation. A member of the jury can be coincidentally in close relation to the respondent in a trial and this might cause the juror to be inclined to the side of the respondent rather than evaluating the evidence presented to give a factual finding. Why A Jury Trial is Inappropriate in Britain The judiciary system’s ambiguity has been ignored for quite some time. Though numerous reform measures have been implemented successfully, it is still evident that more reforms need to be implemented to smoothen the entire judicial system. These reforms are being pursued and implemented worldwide. As is the case in most countries, the reforms that are being made in Britain’s judicial system seem to be axing out jury trials slowly by slowly. Numerous reasons, which have turned out to be true, have been given to justify this reform. The first reason why trials by jury are facing opposition in today’s society is the fact that they are expensive. For this reason, juries could be exempted from thousands of cases annually. This axing activity is expected to help Britain save an excess of £30million annually by cutting down on the costs. According to a study carried out in 1985 by the shorter trials committee, a criminal trial by jury in the supreme court was amounting to a total of $7200 daily. The same trial by jury in a county court was costing approximately $5500 daily. This study was carried out in the United States 27 years ago and therefore these costs have substantially risen from then. The main reason why these costs are high is the fact that the number of people that are hired to take part in the whole trial process is too high. A single trial will in effect require that solicitors, barristers, judges, court reporters, court staff, and the courts themselves to be hired. In addition, witnesses will in some cases be an added expense to the whole process of trial. To cut the costs thereof, the importance of the participants in a trial needs to be examined. Though juries are important in the whole process of justice, their role is not quite essential especially in smaller cases. Their main agenda is to listen to the evidence that is being presented by the parties and passing a verdict or giving the judge their findings to pass a verdict or give a sentence. For this reason, juries in minor theft cases, assaults, burglaries, driving cases, and criminal damage cases are being eliminated through reforms. The law, however, still allows such cases to be tried with or without a jury. A jury trial therefore has no place in modern day Britain because it is very expensive (Cooper, 2012). The second reason why trial by jury is being faced out from the justice system is the fact that it is a lengthy process and is extremely time consuming. This is because the jury has to deliberate upon the evidence that has been presented to them and give results of their fact finding. More to this, the presentation of evidence to the jury and the directions given to the jury by the judge are extremely time consuming. Sometimes, the jury has to take more time when voting for the verdict they should give especially in cases that require that the verdict be a unanimous decision among the members of the jury. If the jury is unable to reach a verdict, or their verdict is overturned by an appeal court, then a retrial is necessitated. If juries are scrapped out, then more cases will be sent to the magistrates’ courts and the time the judges will take to hear rape cases and murder trials will be substantially reduced. Sending cases to the magistrate’s courts will not only save on time but it will cut on costs as compared to sending the same cases to the crown courts. The taxpayer will be spared a cost of £2100 daily. In some major criminal trials, there is a risk of members of the jury tampering with the proceedings of the trial or even making it difficult for the jury to reach a verdict. In such a case, the judge or respondent are allowed to challenge the inclusion of certain people in the jury without the necessity of giving reason. This right can be inappropriately used and it would lead to more time being wasted in the selection process of a replacement juror. For this to be avoided, the UK government decided to end the automatic right under law to trial by jury for complex fraud cases in 2002 (Financial Times, 2002). Expert assessors have since then replaced jurors and assist the judge in the hearing of such cases. Juries are meant to be a representative of the whole community. This means that members of the jury should be representing people from different backgrounds, in terms of class, age, ethnicity, and any other forum for social classification. However, the legitimacy of a jury as a representative of the community as a whole can be put to question. As pointed out earlier, the certain persons are disqualified from being members of the jury. For example, people who have been in prison or are currently under probation cannot be included in the jury. This means that people from this social front are inadequately represented in the jury. In addition, if a jury is to be a representative of the community, then it should provide a cross-sectional panel which, in essence, needs to include such persons in the jury (Walker and Lane, 1994). Finally, in most cases, juries reach a verdict by virtue of instincts. Most verdicts are reached on the basis of what is fair rather than what is law. Juries will act outside the law if they feel that the law is too harsh to be applicable in a particular situation. The pointing case exemplifies the manner in which a jury acts on what is fair rather than what is law. The case was about a public servant, Mr. Pointing, who leaked out documents about the sinking of an Argentinian ship during the Falkland’s war. Mr.Pointing was charged with offense under the Official SecretsAct. In his defence, Mr. Pointing said that he leaked out the documents because members of the public had a right to know what really conspired during sinking of the ship. The jury that had been selected for the trial refused to convict him simply because acting according to the law would have been unfair. Juries therefore, in their quest for fairness, tend to create a society that disregards the law pertaining to certain matters. Conclusion Trial by jury is a system that is slowly fading away in modern day Britain; the reforms seem to be putting it out of date. The main reason why trial by jury does not have a crucial role to play in modern day Britain is the fact that it levies a hefty cost to the taxpayers. Abolishing the jury system would translate to enormous savings by the government. According to Newman (2002), serious fraud cases are too technical for a jury to handle. The technicality of these cases can cause the case to drag on for years leading to an added expense which is passed on to the taxpayer. Expert assessors are today helping the judges in the hearing of serious fraud cases. This is cheaper and saves on time. It also eliminates the possibility of the jury being intimidated by the defendants during trials of serious cases of fraud. Former attorney general, Lord Williams of Mostyn states that in serious instances, trial by jury is an appropriate remedy. However, this remedy is not sustainable in every case (Parker, 2000). References Anonymous (2002), Apr 15. UK to end trial by jury for fraud.Financial Times, 01-01. ISSN 03071766. Cooper, R. ( January 16, 2012). Trial by jury faces axe in up to 70,000 cases per year to cut costs. Available at: [Accessed November 24, 2012]. Gibson, B., Cavadino, P., & Faulkner, D. (2008). The criminal justice system: an introduction. Winchester, Waterside Press. Hostettler, J. (2004). The criminal jury old and new: jury power from early times to the present day. Winchester, Waterside Juries Act 1976. (March 2, 1976). An Act To Amend The Law Relating To Juries. Kelly, H. A., Karlin, L. W., &Wegemer, G. (2011). Thomas More's trial by jury: a procedural and legal review with a collection of documents. Woodbridge, Boydell Press. Newman, C., (2002), Jul 17. Right to trial by jury set for axe in shake-up. Financial Times, 04- 04.ISSN 03071766. Parker, A., (2000), Sep 29. Lords reject bill curbing right to trial by jury. Financial Times, 03-03. ISSN 03071766. Roesch, R., Zapf, P. A., & Hart, S. D. (2010).Forensic psychology and law.Hoboken, N.J., John Wiley &Sons. Walker, J. & Lane, D. (1994).The Jury System. Available at: [Accessed November 24, 2012]. Read More