“Two thirds of jurors sitting in British courts fail to understand what a judge tells them about important aspects of the law, risking serious miscarriages of justice, a study [based on 69,000 verdicts] concludes.” One possible response is a greater shift to written instructions from judges. [Telegraph] Among other conclusions of the Ministry of Justice study: “all-white juries do not discriminate against black defendants” and “men sitting on juries are less likely than women to listen to arguments and change their minds.” [Times Online]
6 Comments
I don’t think any jury in any common law country understands jury instructions. I mean, lawyers can barely understand them. I know plenty who’ve had to record it and play it back after the judge recites them to comprehend what was said. I just hope that this type of stuff doesn’t lead to too many fair judgments from being overturned. Especially for corrupt individuals who have power to control others. I just read this blog posting: http://lawblog.legalmatch.com/2010/02/18/sheriff-joe-vs-the-feds/
It’s about this really corrupt prison guard. I hope whatever judgment he gets keeps him in jail and he doesn’t get off on some technicality.
“The study was carried out by Professor Cheryl Thomas, of University College London, and is based on 69,000 verdicts across 18 months. ”
According to my calculator that means (given a working month of 120 hours and no holidays) and average of 32 cases an hour, or a little under two minutes per case. In what sense of the word can the researcher be said to have studied the cases?
So we have a situation where the judges cannot explain the situation clearly to the jury. And then it is the juries’ fault that they cannot follow the instructions.
The purpose of a jury is to take the law and apply it as human beings. I think from an American viewpoint, we have jury nullification. I have no problem with that.
Bob
“… or a little under two minutes per case.”
I think the 69K cases were decided over a span of 18 months, not that the research was completed in 18 months. In addition, most professors have teams of researchers working for them so you would need to know how many people were involved with the analysis before you could try to calculate how much time was spent looking at each case.
Two thirds is a pretty big number in such context, i am sure that situation is not better and maybe even worse outside UK, the system is very imperfect, corrupted and so on.
[…] Non-comprehending jurors are not just an American problem. Yet we expect them to rule based on their interpretation of expert testimony about difficult forensic issues in criminal cases and complex economic matters in antitrust cases, to name a couple. Interesting side note: White juries do not discriminate against Blacks. […]