Jury Screening Process in Canada - Essay Example

Running Head: Jury Impartiality in Canada Jury Screening Process in Canada Juries are used mainly for criminal trails in Canada and there is a limit to the criminal trials a jury can be used for. Less serious cases do not require the services of the jury and a judge presides and makes judgment of these cases. In serious cases, the accused people have the right to choose on whether their cases to be presided over by a jury or a judge. In cases of high magnitude levels like treason and murder, the cases are heard by both the judge and the jury. The juries do not offer any recommendations in terms of the sentences. The jury is selected following specific criteria and prospective jurors have to answer some questions and have to be considered as impartial. Other matters which are deemed are relevant have to be passed and other pertinent questions must be approved by a judge. Juries do not have the power to award damages and hence are not used in civil cases. Thesis Statement The juries in the Republic of Canada have portrayed that they cannot be impartial in passing judgments in various cases due to prejudices against either the victim or the defendant. This paper will look into why this situation is prevailing and how it can be alleviated to ensure the judgments passed are just to both the victim and the defendant. To this effect there have been a number of cases in which the juries have passed judgments through the consideration of other aspects rather than the facts and objectivity. A good example are the cases where there is favoritism based on various aspects of discrimination like gender, age, race and others. The most prevalent is the discrimination based on sex and race in the country. Introduction In Canada, for one to qualify to serve as a jury, one must be nineteen years old or older. One must also be a citizen of Canada and must be a resident of the province in which the case is being heard in. Jury selection is attended by various people including the accused, the lawyer of the accused, crown counsel and the staff of the court. Twelve jurors are chosen for a particular case. After the charges have been led by the court clerk to the accused, the accused will either plead guilty or innocence and the jurors are then chosen if the accused pleads not guilty. The jurors are informed of when the case will start and the expected day of finalizing (Izzett, 1974). Jurors who are selected for a particular case have to be screened and this means that the jurors will have to undergo some profiling so as to be deemed to be impartial in a particular case. Being impartial means that the particular juror will not be in a position to favor any side of the case. This means that the juror will have be free of any prejudice and favoritism attitude towards the various parties involved in the case. This is very important for justice to prevail in any case (Paglia, 1998). Jury Representativeness It is important for a jury selected for a particular case to be representative. Towards this end, it is important for the jury selectors to have a list of people who will ensure that representation of all involved parties is maximized and this means that exclusion and bias have to be eliminated from the picture as much as possible. The administration of the legal system in Canada needs to be reviewable and accountable so as to ensure that there is inclusion in the jury selection of all cases and trials in the various jurisdictions in the country. The traditional methods of selecting the jurors from electoral roles should be done away with and in its place more appropriate use of community groups to come up with the lists of potential jurors for various cases in the provinces. Disqualifications and exclusions should decrease in number as these only give rise to the selection of stereotypes and biases. Inclusion should be intensified so as exclusion on such grounds as sex, race, age, abilities, sexual orientations, ethnic origin and religion are done away within the system (Izzett, 1974). Jury Impartiality Jury impartiality is seen as a means by which the jury selected for a particular case will pass the judgment based on objectivity and the facts tabled rather than a jury that will pass the judgment based on bias and prejudice. This is very instrumental in the passage of any justice and it has been very damaging in some cases where the jury did not pass the right judgment based on bias and prejudice. There are various ways in which a jury cannot be impartial and this is by accepting to be objective in their cases and in this way they judge a case by means of being biased towards one party in the case. This means that the jury can be biased towards age, race, sex, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity and ethnic origin. The jury selection should be done in such a way to ensure that the jurors selected portray the highest degree of impartiality as possible (Call). Jury Screening in Canada The jurors who have been assigned various trials in Canada have not shown enough characteristics of impartiality in passing judgments in the cases they had been assigned to. This means that there are calls for the jury selection to be intensified so as to ensure that the jurors are as impartial as they can be when passing judgments. There is rising concerns over the justice system of the country because many people feel that there is gross discrimination by various jurors when passing judgments to the cases they are assigned to (Schuller, 1994). A good example of impartiality is seen in the biasness nature of the jurors who are assigned various cases. This biasness is mainly in form of religion, skin color, race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, age among other forms of discrimination in the judicial system of the country. This kind of biasness have led to the public being alarmed over the nature of the system in the country and many of the minorities have fears that their cases will be heard by a biased jury that will not offer justice when passing the judgments. There are calls for the intensification of the jury selection to ensure that impartiality is done away with and many people have asserted that these can only be achieved if the jury selection teams chose juries who are representative of the various demographics in the country (Steblay, 1999). The mock juror research has acted as a perfect way of showing how impartial the jurors of certain cases can be when dealing with various cases. A good example is when a mock jury was given the mock case details of a rape victim and a rape defendant and there were shocking revelations of how far the jurors will be partial in a case. The most sentiment that was felt by the jurors was the sentiment of racism and this means that many jurors will prejudice against somebody who is not from their own races. The other outstanding discrimination aspect was sex and many females were found not to be impartial in cases where men were defendants and especially if the victim was a female. The same sentiments were shared by men over cases involving women and men. The mock juror research has reported many incidences where impartiality would not have been employed in passing judgments. This shows that the research has proved that many cases are not judged in a fair way because of lack of impartiality in the country. A good example is the way rape cases have been handled in the country in varying degrees by juries with majority of women. In these cases, most of the males are always deemed to be guilty (Cammack). Demographic variables have also proved to be another aspect of lack of impartiality in various cases in Canada. One of the best examples is races where the majority race being the Whites in the country is mostly favored because many of the jurors will also be White. In cases where there is the involvement of a White, the country has been faced with the vice that the cases will not deliver a just judgment because the jurors are mostly in favor of the Whites in the country. Another front in demographics is age where the youths will be prejudiced against. This means that the jurors will not exercise impartiality in cases where young people are feted against older citizens. This can be rooted to the fact that many of the jurors are mainly the older citizens. Other demographics that have proved to be an aspect are the sexes and this means that the sexes are mostly feted against each other in cases (Perez, 1993). Personality traits have also been very influential in the passing of judgments on various cases in the country. The jurors who are selected have been witnessed to be very prejudiced against some personality traits and this has led to many cases not delivering justice. Personality traits are often construed to such things robbery, rape and other types of felons where various personality traits are considered to be prone to committing these crimes. For examples people who are loners by nature have been prejudiced against in crimes such as rape and sexual assault. This means that the levels of impartiality are very low and this can also be attributed to personal prejudices against some people due to their character traits (Paglia, 1998). Another aspect that has raised the levels of prejudice is the personal attitudes of the jurors who are selected to various cases in Canada. Personal attitudes of the jurors towards some people have been very disastrous to some cases. These attitudes may be directed towards some people who differ with the jurors' religion, sex, ethnicity, age and other forms of discrimination that exists in the country (Call). There is a number of grounds for discrimination that have been prohibited by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms that are highlighted by Section 15 of the Charter and the ground of discrimination by race has not been fully litigated by the charter. This means that the justice system of the country has put some races at a more favorable position than other races. There have been numerous cases in the country where the Jury has not been impartial in their rulings. Improving impartiality in the juries Many people in the country have the sentiments that the best way of ensuring impartiality in the juries is to ensure that the juries are representative, inclusive and that the discipline of objectivity when dealing with these cases are instilled in the juries during the selection process. One of the most important ways on ensuring impartiality in the juries is instilling the discipline of objectivity in the juries. This means that the jurors will have to know that when they are assigned a case, they do so in order to deliver justice and such things as prejudice should not be incorporated in their duties in any case. This means that the government and especially the judicial system has a responsibility of ensuring that policies are put in place to educate the jurors of the need of objectivity when passing judgments in the cases they called to preside over. There are even calls for the public to be educated on the importance of impartiality by the juries in the country. With objectivity, the cases would be handled in such a way that there would be no prejudices and biasness in the passing of judgments. However, this is not the case as the situation stands and this means that many people are denied the justice they deserve. This plays a very important role in denying some people their rights on grounds of their religion, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity and ethnic origin (Cammack). Representative and inclusive juries are also very important in ensuring that the juries are impartial in passing their judgment in various cases. The concept of representative and inclusion in the juries mans that the juries that are selected represent equally all the various parties involved in the case and most important the defendant and the victim. This means that the instance of prejudice will be countered by the mere fact that all the parties have better representation and hence the minorities have their chance of getting a fair trial without being prejudiced against (Olczak, 1991). Conclusion Impartiality is very important in any matters that concern justice and more so if the matter is at the hand of a group of people. Juries in Canada are selected to perform a certain duty in ensuring that the people who are involved in trials and especially the victim and the defendant get justice in a trial. Impartiality has greatly been disregarded in many cases and this is because the jurors who are involved in these cases are prejudiced against a certain people in the society. The best way to avoid this is by ensuring that all the jurors who are selected for a particular case portray that highest degree of impartiality. The government of Canada also has a responsibility of ensuring that the country is duly educated on the importance of juries being impartial and also by coming up with policies which greatly encourage impartiality by the jurors who are selected for various cases. References Call, J. "Psychology in Litigation. How to Prepare Witnesses and Select Jurors" by J.Call Cammack, M. "In Search of the Post-Positivist Jury" Izzett, R.R., Leginski, W. (1974). 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Jurors' decisions in trial of battered women who kill: the role of prior beliefs and expert testimony. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24,316-337. Steblay, N.M., Besirevic , J., Fulero S.M., Jimenes-Lorente, B. (1999). The effects of pre-trial publicity on juror verdicts: A meta-analytic review. Law and Human Behaviour, 23, 219-235 Read More