Using Juries in Criminal Cases (OCR A-Level Law): Revision Notes

Using Juries in Criminal Cases

Introduction to juries

Juries represent one of the most distinctive features of the English legal system, though they are used in only approximately 2 per cent of criminal trials. Despite their limited use, juries play a crucial role in the most serious criminal cases heard in the Crown Court. The jury system embodies the principle that defendants should be judged by their peers rather than by professional judges alone, reflecting democratic values within the criminal justice process.

Qualification for jury service

Jury service in England and Wales is both a civic duty and a privilege, but not everyone is eligible to serve. To qualify for jury service, an individual must meet several specific criteria that ensure jurors are suitable to perform this important role.

Age requirements: A person must be aged 18 or over and under 76 years old. This age range ensures that jurors have sufficient maturity and life experience while remaining capable of performing the demanding role. The upper age limit recognizes that jury service can be physically and mentally taxing, involving long periods of concentration.

Electoral registration: Potential jurors must be registered as a parliamentary or local government elector. This requirement links jury service to citizenship and civic participation. The electoral register serves as the source from which potential jurors are identified and summoned.

Residency requirement: Individuals must have resided in the UK for any period of at least five years since age 13. This ensures that jurors have sufficient connection to and understanding of British society, culture, and legal principles. The requirement does not demand continuous residence but rather a cumulative total of five years.

Mental capacity: A person must not be subject to provisions under the Mental Health Act 1983. This safeguards both the individual and the trial process by ensuring that jurors have the mental capacity to understand evidence, follow legal directions, and engage in deliberations.

Disqualifications: Certain individuals are disqualified from jury service, including persons currently on bail for criminal offences. Other disqualifications may include people with certain criminal convictions, those serving custodial sentences, and individuals with specific criminal justice roles that would create conflicts of interest.

Selection process

The selection of jurors involves several stages designed to produce a fair and impartial panel while allowing both prosecution and defence to challenge inappropriate selections.

Issuing jury summons: The Jury Central Summonsing Bureau issues jury summonses to potential jurors selected randomly from the electoral register. This centralized system ensures consistency across the country and random selection from the eligible population. When someone receives a jury summons, they are legally required to attend unless they have a valid reason for excusal or deferral.

Jury vetting: Before trial, jury vetting can be conducted by either the prosecution or defence. This process involves checking the background and suitability of potential jurors to identify any concerns about their appropriateness to serve. Vetting may reveal conflicts of interest, potential bias, or other factors that could compromise the fairness of the trial. However, jury vetting is used sparingly and only in specific circumstances to avoid undermining the principle of random selection.

Challenges: Once a jury is sworn in, both prosecution and defence retain the right to challenge individual jurors or the entire jury panel. These challenges must be made for cause, meaning that a valid legal reason must be provided. For example, a challenge might be based on a juror's personal connection to the case, demonstrated bias, or inability to serve impartially. This safeguard ensures that any serious concerns about jury composition can be addressed before the trial proceeds.

Appointment to a jury

The appointment process involves careful random selection to ensure fairness and prevent manipulation of jury composition.

Random selection process: When potential jurors arrive at court, they are divided into groups of 15 people. From each group of 15, 12 names are drawn at random to form the actual jury that will hear the case. This double layer of randomness (first from the electoral register, then from the group of 15) helps ensure that the jury genuinely represents a cross-section of society and cannot be predicted or manipulated by any party.

Appointing the foreperson: The first name selected at random from each group of 15 becomes the foreperson of that jury. The foreperson plays a coordinating role during deliberations and announces the jury's verdict in court. However, the foreperson does not have greater authority than other jurors in reaching the verdict; each juror's voice carries equal weight.

Role and functions of juries

Juries perform a specific and limited function within criminal trials, distinct from the role of the judge.

Sitting in the Crown Court: Juries sit in the Crown Court as a panel of 12 persons to hear the most serious criminal cases, known as indictable offences. These include offences such as murder, rape, robbery, and serious fraud. The Crown Court is the only criminal court where juries are used; Magistrates' Courts do not employ juries.

Deciding the verdict: The jury's sole function is to decide the verdict for the defendant: guilty or not guilty. Juries do not determine sentences; if they find a defendant guilty, sentencing is the responsibility of the judge. This separation of functions ensures that the jury focuses exclusively on whether the prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.

Fact-finding role: Juries decide the facts of the case while the judge directs them on points of law. This division of responsibility is fundamental to the jury system. The judge explains the relevant legal principles, what the prosecution must prove, and what legal tests apply. The jury then applies these legal principles to the facts they have heard in evidence. For example, in a murder trial, the judge would explain the legal definition of murder and the required mental state (mens rea), while the jury would decide whether the evidence shows the defendant actually committed the acts and had the necessary intent.

Majority and unanimous verdicts: Juries are allowed to reach a majority verdict (11–1 or 10–2) rather than requiring a unanimous decision (12–0). Initially, juries must attempt to reach a unanimous verdict. However, if this proves impossible after a reasonable period of deliberation (typically at least two hours), the judge may accept a majority verdict. This provision recognizes that achieving complete unanimity can sometimes be impossible and helps prevent hung juries that would necessitate retrials.

Jury independence: Bushell's Case (1670)

The independence of juries from judicial pressure is protected by the landmark case of Bushell's Case (1670). This case established the crucial principle that juries are independent and without fear of pressure from the judge to either convict or reach a verdict quickly.

In Bushell's Case, jurors were punished for refusing to convict Quakers William Penn and William Mead of unlawful assembly, despite the judge's clear direction to convict. The Court of Common Pleas ruled that jurors could not be punished for their verdict, regardless of judicial direction or evidence. This established that juries are the sole judges of fact and can reach verdicts according to their conscience.

This principle remains fundamental to the jury system today. Judges cannot threaten, intimidate, or punish jurors for reaching a particular verdict or for taking time to deliberate. This independence ensures that juries can fulfill their constitutional role as a safeguard against oppressive prosecution and unjust laws.

Advantages of using juries in criminal cases

The jury system offers several significant advantages that have contributed to its endurance in the English legal system.

Public confidence

The use of juries helps maintain public trust and confidence in the criminal justice system because defendants are judged by ordinary members of the community rather than exclusively by professional judges. This democratic element reassures the public that justice is administered by people like themselves, not by a distant legal elite. The participation of lay people in serious criminal trials demonstrates that the justice system belongs to the community it serves. When verdicts are delivered by ordinary citizens who have carefully considered the evidence, the public is more likely to accept and respect those outcomes, even in controversial cases.

Jury equity

Juries possess the power to deliver verdicts based on fairness and conscience, known as jury equity. This ability upholds democracy and freedom of will by allowing juries to temper the strict application of law with common sense and justice. Jury equity means that juries can acquit defendants even when the evidence technically proves guilt, if they believe that applying the law would be unjust in the particular circumstances.

Similarly, in R v Grobbelaar (1997), jury equity came into play in a case involving allegations of match-fixing against a professional footballer. These cases demonstrate how juries can act as a constitutional safeguard against oppressive or unjust applications of the law.

Open system of justice

Jury trials embody an open system of justice where the process is public and transparent. Crucially, the system assumes no legal knowledge of jurors, so judges must carefully explain all relevant legal principles in plain language. This requirement has several benefits. First, it ensures that justice is accessible and understandable to ordinary people, not shrouded in legal technicality. Second, it forces lawyers and judges to present cases clearly and logically. Third, it serves an educational function, helping the public understand how the law works. The openness of jury trials contributes to public confidence and prevents the criminal justice system from becoming an impenetrable specialist domain.

Privacy of decision-making process

Although trials are public, juries decide the verdict in private, without outside pressures. After hearing all evidence and receiving the judge's legal directions, the jury retires to a private jury room where they deliberate in secret. No one else is present during these deliberations—not the judge, lawyers, court staff, or press. This privacy allows jurors to speak freely, change their minds, and reach decisions based solely on the evidence and their consciences, without fear of external pressure or criticism. The secrecy of deliberations protects jurors from intimidation and ensures they can fulfill their role independently. This combination of public trial and private deliberation balances transparency with freedom of decision-making.

Random selection process

The random selection process allows a cross-section of the community to be represented on juries. Unlike professional judges who come from predominantly legal and middle-class backgrounds, juries are drawn randomly from the electoral register, capturing a broader spectrum of society. This means that people of different ages, occupations, educational backgrounds, socioeconomic classes, ethnicities, and life experiences may serve together. This diversity brings varied perspectives to the evaluation of evidence and helps ensure that verdicts reflect community standards rather than the views of a narrow professional class. Random selection also prevents either party from manipulating jury composition to their advantage.

Neutrality

In theory, a jury should be impartial, and as a panel of 12, any individual prejudices should be cancelled out. No single person decides the verdict; instead, twelve people must discuss the case and reach agreement (either unanimous or by majority). This collective decision-making process means that if one or two jurors harbor personal biases, these can be identified and counterbalanced by the other jurors during deliberation. The requirement for multiple people to agree before conviction provides a safeguard against individual prejudice determining the outcome. This collective neutrality is arguably more reliable than depending on the impartiality of a single judge, who, despite professional training, remains an individual with personal views and potential unconscious biases.

Disadvantages of using juries in criminal cases

Despite their advantages, the jury system faces several significant criticisms and practical challenges.

Slow and expensive

Jury trials are slow and expensive compared to trials by magistrates or judges alone. Because jurors have no legal training, judges must carefully explain points of law, which increases the time taken for trials. Complex legal principles must be broken down into terms that lay people can understand, and judges must ensure their directions are clear and comprehensive. This process extends trial length, increasing the cost of judges, lawyers, and other court personnel. Additionally, preparing jury bundles, providing jury facilities, and accommodating twelve people plus alternates adds to expenses. In an era of strained court resources and long waiting times for trial, the resource intensity of jury trials represents a significant practical disadvantage.

Unpopular

Jury service is compulsory, meaning that many jurors would rather not serve due to its impact on their working or family life. When summoned, people must attend regardless of personal convenience, and while employers are required to release employees for jury service, this can cause significant disruption. Self-employed people may lose income during their service. Parents may face childcare challenges. Those with caring responsibilities for elderly or disabled relatives may struggle to fulfill these duties while serving on a jury. Although individuals can apply for excusal or deferral in cases of genuine hardship, the compulsory nature means some jurors may be resentful or insufficiently engaged with their responsibilities. This lack of enthusiasm could potentially affect the quality of deliberations.

Outside influences

Jurors may be improperly influenced by media reporting, social media discussion, or deliberate interference. In high-profile cases, extensive media coverage before and during trial can shape public opinion and potentially bias jurors, even if they are instructed to decide based only on courtroom evidence. The rise of social media has intensified this problem, as jurors may encounter or even seek out information about cases online. More seriously, jurors can be subject to nobbling—attempts to influence, intimidate, or bribe them to reach particular verdicts.

The case of R v Twomey (2010) illustrates this danger, where credible concerns about attempts to nobble the jury through intimidation and bribery led to the unprecedented step of ordering a trial without a jury. This case demonstrates that while jury nobbling is rare, it represents a serious threat to justice that may require exceptional measures.

No explanation of verdict

Juries deliver their verdicts without explanation, which raises concerns about accountability and rationality. The decision is made in secret and no reason is given behind the decision. Unlike judges who must provide reasoned judgments explaining their decisions, juries simply announce "guilty" or "not guilty" with no justification. This means it is impossible to know whether the jury properly understood and applied the law, or whether they were influenced by irrelevant factors, prejudice, or misunderstanding.

Furthermore, there are concerns that bizarre methods may be used to reach decisions, as illustrated by the extraordinary case below.

Such cases raise troubling questions about what actually occurs during jury deliberations and whether juries always approach their duties rationally and appropriately.

Failure to understand the case

Due to the complex nature of the law, it is possible juries do not follow the issues clearly. Criminal trials, particularly those involving fraud, complex financial arrangements, or technical medical or scientific evidence, can be extremely complicated. Juries must understand detailed factual evidence, grasp technical concepts, and then apply complex legal principles correctly. However, jurors receive no training and may lack the educational background or intellectual capacity to fully comprehend what they hear. There is concern that in complex cases, juries may become confused, fail to follow the evidence properly, or make decisions based on misunderstanding rather than careful analysis. This problem is particularly acute in long trials involving voluminous documentary evidence or expert testimony on technical subjects.

Lack of neutrality

While collective decision-making should theoretically cancel out individual bias, there is concern that a complete cancelling of bias, especially racism, is speculative at best and highly unlikely. Research suggests that unconscious bias affects everyone, and there is no guarantee that twelve randomly selected people will be free from prejudice. Indeed, if prejudice is widespread in society, it is likely to be reflected in jury composition. Racial, religious, gender, or class prejudices may influence how jurors assess witnesses' credibility, interpret ambiguous evidence, or sympathize with victims and defendants.

The case of Sander v UK (2000) highlights this issue, where racist comments by jurors compromised the fairness of the trial. This case demonstrates that racial bias can infiltrate jury rooms and that the assumption of collective neutrality may be optimistic. The closed nature of jury deliberations makes it difficult to identify or address such bias when it occurs.

Key cases demonstrating jury issues

Several important cases illustrate both the strengths and weaknesses of the jury system:

Remember!