Trial by Jury

[ratty]

Taking Quids post from another thread.. as I understand it, a third re retrial of a criminal case started yesterday or the day before without a jury. Bearing in mind that the jury had seemingly been nobbled the previous times, is this right??

For the record I do not know where I stand on this. Fundamentally it does not sit right with me.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Of course it's not right. Next they'll ban hunting and abolish the House of Lords.

[Santerme]

Reintroduce trial by combat, it was only abolished in 1819!!

[mockney piers]

In principle it feels a bit dodge, but t is the first time it's been used and this is the fourth retrial and there are strong fears of jury tampering. As long as there are sufficient checks and balances and it is used as a last report it doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

Btw has anyone read magna carta, apart from being a bit of a weird document, it really wasn't intended to benefit the likes of you and me, just the big nobs (so to speak). It certainly shouldn't be held as some sort of paragon of human rights believe me!!

[Mick Mac]

Trial by jury can be neatly sidestepped if the authorities think necessary:

The Diplock courts were a type of court established by the Government in Northern Ireland in 1972, in an attempt to overcome widespread jury intimidation associated with the Troubles. The right to trial by jury was suspended for certain "scheduled offences" and the court consisted of a single judge. The courts were abolished in 2007[1].

The courts were established in response to a report by Lord Diplock[2], which addressed the problem of dealing with paramilitary violence through means other than internment. The report marked the beginnings of a policy known as criminalisation[3], in which the state removed any legal distinction between political violence and normal crime, with paramilitary prisoners treated as common criminals.

The report provided the basis for the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973, which, although later amended (with the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1974 and subsequent renewals), continued as the basis for counter-terrorist legislation in the UK.

Until recently the Diplock courts only tried Republican or Loyalist paramilitaries. In the first case in which a person not associated with the Troubles was tried and convicted, Abbas Boutrab, a suspected al-Qaeda sympathiser, was found guilty of having information that could assist bombing an airliner.[4] A sentence of six years was handed down on December 20, 2005

Non-jury trials, however, may still be used in Northern Ireland, as elsewhere in the UK, but only in exceptional cases

Link

[DaveR]

The provisions allowing non-jury trials in jury nobbling cases came into force in 2006 and although there have been previous applications, this is the first time it's been used. It seems that judges are not generally keen, which is as it should be. The provisions for non-jury trials in complex fraud cases are still not in force as far as I know, so it doesn't seem that the government/parliament are over keen either.

Juries are important, but they are not the cure for all ills. I would guess that they acquit more often than a judge would, but that includes acquitting guilty people!

[Santerme]

mockney piers Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> In principle it feels a bit dodge, but t is the

> first time it's been used and this is the fourth

> retrial and there are strong fears of jury

> tampering. As long as there are sufficient checks

> and balances and it is used as

> a last report it doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

>

>

> Btw has anyone read magna carta, apart from being

> a bit of a weird document, it really wasn't

> intended to benefit the likes of you and me, just

> the big nobs (so to speak). It certainly shouldn't

> be held as some sort of paragon of human rights

> believe me!!

I may be wrong but wasn't it the Assize of Clarendon rather than Magna Carta that paved the way to jury trials?

Or was that due process?

[ianr]

DaveR Wrote:

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> It seems that judges are not generally keen, which is as it should be.

And the preconditions are fairly stringent too. There must be a real and present risk of interference with a jury, evidenced by such as jury-tampering in a previous hearing, and a likelihood that it would happen again, even in the face of protective measures.

In this case there seem to have two previous attempts to subvert the jury, and the Appeal Court was satisfied, after hearing evidence, that even the more stringent of two proposed sets of protective measures -- at least 82 police officers attached to the task over a period of at least six months, costing ?6m+ -- would still not be enough to address the problem of interference via the jurors' families. The Appeal Court's judgment is here: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2009/1035.html

[mockney piers]

Not sure Santerme, I always associated Magna Carta with habeus corpus (and something to do with the price of bread), will check it out for you.

[SimonM]

I always associate Magna Carta with Tony Hancock ("Did she die in vain?!")

There is nothing sacrosanct about trial by jury. It's not an especially efficient system. Someone - I forget who - once defined a jury as 12 people too dim to get out of doing jury service...

[Santerme]

mockney piers Wrote:

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> Not sure Santerme, I always associated Magna Carta

> with habeus corpus (and something to do with the

> price of bread), will check it out for you.

It is just a vague memory from a conversation I was having with a friend in Memphis about a year ago....I will google it when I get to a real computer...

[mockney piers]

Ok just had a quick swizz.

It's mostly to do with reinforcing in writing the feudal rights & responsibiliies against encroachmet from the crown. Lots of stuff to do with land, inheritance and tax and debt. Then a bunch about fines being proportoonate to level of crime and ability to pay.

Then one of those odd ones 'no town or person should be forced to build bridges unless there s an ancient obligation to do so'. Then stuff stopping officials from abusing power (confiscation of goods unfairly etc).

More medieval duties then something about getting rid of fish weirs

Then the nub:

A man cannot be brought to trial without credible witnesses (habeus corpus).

No punishment without lawful judgement (rule of law)

Then lots more weird bits about forests and sme very specific names to be sacked, that Guy de Cigogn?, always rubbing barons up the wrong way.

Then there is a while section about judgement of equals (25 men) but this is quite specific to land disputes as a result of the rebellion. Finally some stuff about everybody freeing hostages taken during the dispute.

and that's it.

So no, nothing about juries.

And the only mentions not relevant specifically to the nobility or church are that proportionate punishment shouldn't include taking a farmers farm tools and the slightly surreal:

"no one shall be arrested or imprisoned on the appeal of a woman for the death of any person except the husband".

I'm sure they had their reasons?!