Gobsmacked - The Jury Murder Trial - should we have professional Jurors?

SexyGreyFox

SexyGreyFox

SexyGreyFox

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I watched this series over the last four nights and sat there astounded by what I saw.
For those who don't know it is a mock trial based on a real case with names changed.
I have had zero experience with what Jurors do, not a sniff even though I work for a department that spends a lot of time in Courts.
I know it's a TV thing but what came over to me is that the 'normal' public is not experienced enough to make these decisions.
So they originally voted where 2 are for murder, 5 for acquittal and the rest between don't know or manslaughter but this would mean a hung jury.

Here's what gobsmacked me:
All 12 then decide they need to come up with a 10 to 2 verdict so 5 of them have got to change their minds.
This meant the two who were 100% sure of guilty came down to manslaughter and three of them came from acquittal to manslaughter :eek::eek:

Is this what happens in a real Jury room, Jurors can just change their minds without proof being provided?
It's not like the old film 12 Angry Men where one of them states facts to change peoples minds, this was just 12 people wanting to walk out of the court with a verdict.

When they gave their manslaughter verdict they were then told what the real jury gave the defendant - guilty, how long she got - 25 years minimum 17 and the Judges scathing talk about the murderer.

If this is what happens in Jury rooms up and down the UK it means there has been a lot of Miscarriages of Justice, either defendants getting off or being sent down.
I came away from it thinking we should have professionals sitting in those seats and not somebody like me who hasn't got a clue and would have voted 'don't know'.
Our Tommeh Ten Names Robinson thread just shows how normal people are influenced.

What do you think?
 
What reason would people have to be a professional Juror? There is no career progression. If you wanted to make an actual difference in the justice system you are sitting on the wrong side of the fence. I think you would attract people with the wrong intent.
 
I've never had to do jury service, and haven't seen the show, but I have some thoughts:
  • A few years ago my mum got called for jury duty and basically couldn't cope with the thought of having to do it, due to working in schools and hearing about the trauma of some of the kids. So there are some people currently expected to do jury service who definitely shouldn't be doing it, because it's harmful to them and they won't be able to do a good job anyway.
  • People generally hope they never get called for jury duty because it's disruptive and they can't afford the time out. The expenses system doesn't even begin to cover it. This is one reason why the current system causes problems for people - which makes them motivated to get out of doing it asap.
  • People generally get called once, or never, and rarely more than once. This ensures that the jury have the least experience possible. Which to me seems like the opposite of what we want.
  • Imagine you can't do your first job anymore, maybe you did a manual job and got injured, or you're a software engineer who burnt out, there are infinite reasons people become open to jobs like this they wouldn't have otherwise wanted. Creating these jobs serves a purpose beyond just having experienced jurors. Personally I think it sounds like a good coastFIRE job.
 
Who appoints these ‘professional jurors’?

The government? Because if so then we may as well just go down the multiple judges route of civil law systems. And even a cursory knowledge of that system will show just how independent those judges remain once an overbearing government is in place.
 
From my single experience of Jury service, I would say my fellow jurors were absolutely terrible, they were bullies mostly and generally extremely thick, more concerned about getting away for their social life than a correct verdict.

I say if you ever come before such a jury good luck to you. But they’ll probably let you off so they can get home for tea.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
I came away from it thinking we should have professionals sitting in those seats and not somebody like me who hasn't got a clue and would have voted 'don't know'.
Click to expand...

Professionals do not equate to someone competant or unbiased. I've dealt with CAFCAS, who are professionals in their field, recently, when going to court to try to see my children. The fact I want the children to live with me for part of the week has been labelled as 'not having empathy for the children having a change to their routine'. I've been vilified for everything I've said, every accusation my ex made was taken seriously, every though one of her accusations was proven to be completely false from police records. Every accusation I made was completely ignored, including my ex hitting my chil.

I'd wager if CAFCAS were the professionals in charge of sentencing every male would be sent to prison whether guilty or not. They'd probably let every woman off too. They'd say Myra Hindley was a victim of coercive control and all of her crimes were actually the crimes of the patriarchy or some other such feminazi nonsense.
 
A good number of people don’t want to do it… myself included…
The normal public person, myself included don’t understand the law well enough…
The ones that think they understand the law and do want to do it are up their own backsides or/and have an axe to grind.

If I was in the dock for something, I would rather face a court a judges who can make an informed judgment than have a jury where they could be biased.
 
slinxy said:
A good number of people don’t want to do it… myself included…
The normal public person, myself included don’t understand the law well enough…
The ones that think they understand the law and do want to do it are up their own backsides or/and have an axe to grind.

If I was in the dock for something, I would rather face a court a judges who can make an informed judgment than have a jury where they could be biased.
Click to expand...
You’d rather be judged by a civil servant than one of your peers?
 
Cob said:
You’d rather be judged by a civil servant than one of your peers?
Click to expand...
That's what I said wasn't it?
the civil servant will have the experience and references of past cases.. while the so called peer has the daily rag; if they read or just tv/social media if they don't.

EDIT: you find tha a lot of countries don't have jury system. Even in the UK, we don't have a jury system for civil cases, but do for legal cases... which seems backwards to me; yeah let the milkman with zero legal experience decide the more serious cases. At least in France they have judges decide with a jury for the most serious cases.
 
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slinxy said:
That's what I said wasn't it?
the civil servant will have the experience and references of past cases.. while the so called peer has the daily rag; if they read or just tv/social media if they don't.

EDIT: you find tha a lot of countries don't have jury system. Even in the UK, we don't have a jury system for civil cases, but do for legal cases... which seems backwards to me; yeah let the milkman with zero legal experience decide the more serious cases. At least in France they have judges decide with a jury for the most serious cases.
Click to expand...

I’ve already mentioned the multiple judge method of civil law countries in my earlier reply, and stated that they are very open to corruption as soon as authoritarian government comes to power.

Good luck defending yourself against a trio of judges who have been told to find you and your kind guilty of anything and everything they seem fit to accuse you of.
 
slinxy said:
If I was in the dock for something, I would rather face a court a judges who can make an informed judgment than have a jury where they could be biased.
Click to expand...
Judges can still be biased. There is a recent case of an american judge who would basically let criminals walk, if they opted for a trial by judge. So much so that the majority of cases she oversaw are trial by judge (and a signficantly higher percentage when compared to her peers) because the lawyers push their defendents to take that option.
 
So in the real case, the jury gave what you feel was an appropriate judgement. Meanwhile in the tv show that was designed to variously entertain, foster outrage, get the job done in 4 hours flat, etc. they came to a stupid decision?

Hard to believe.
 
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Vonhelmet said:
So in the real case, the jury gave what you feel was an appropriate sentence. Meanwhile in the tv show that was designed to variously entertain, foster outrage, get the job done in 4 hours flat, etc. they came to a stupid decision?

Hard to believe.
Click to expand...

This is the thing, the TV show wouldn't have had it's jury sitting through days and days of evidence and then be told 'you're going to be here for as long as we can get a verdict'
 
Vonhelmet said:
So in the real case, the jury gave what you feel was an appropriate judgement. Meanwhile in the tv show that was designed to variously entertain, foster outrage, get the job done in 4 hours flat, etc. they came to a stupid decision?

Hard to believe.
Click to expand...

Apparently it lasted a full two weeks condensed down to 4x 1hr programmes.
They said they had to do the exact case as it was in the real trial.
 
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