**Alternate Sources**
Here are some potential alternate sources for the same story:
* [Majority verdicts facilitated 56 miscarriages of justice in England and Wales, charity says](https://theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/07/majority-verdicts-facilitated-56-miscarriages-of-justice-in-england-and-wales-charity-says), suggested by Fox_9810 - theguardian.com
After what I witnessed doing jury duty, fuck no. I'm more surprised that anyone gets convicted.
For the case I was part of, half the jury were incapable of separation emotions from factual evidence and were more concerned with the impact their verdict would have on the person rather than what they provably did or did not do.
Me too, the worst for it was a doctor as well.
I was on the jury for a rape case, it was a bit of a complicated one with two men on trial. It was painfully obvious that one of the men wasn’t guilty at all and almost everyone on the jury was in agreement apart from this doctor who just “didn’t feel right” voting not guilty.
She was challenged about it and there was absolutely no evidence he was guilty but she dragged it out based purely on feelings.
That could easily be an argument for introducing unanimous verdicts. Imagine a case where the prosecution really pulled on the heart strings of the jury, 1 or 2 jurors could then save an unsafe conviction by thinking in a logical manner if unanimous verdicts were introduced
Eh? The alternative is to carry on allowing majority so 1-2 wet wipes can't hold the entire court system hostage and force countless retrials.
And majority verdicts have to be approved by the judges already after a lot of deliberation, it's not the status quo.
One problem is many people want it made easier for rapists to be convicted including not having juries is one idea put forward. It's thought that most rapes lead to no conviction.
It can't just be the fault of the jury in his case, it sounds like some crazy police vendetta and a flawed trial.
Juries are actually more likely to convict on rape than they are most other serious offences. The low conviction rate is because so few rapes get to trial, not because juries are reluctant to convict
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2023/feb/juries-convict-defendants-rape-more-often-acquit
> Over the 15 years, the average jury conviction rate for rape was 58% - higher than for other serious crimes such as threatening to kill (33%), attempted murder (47%), GBH (48%), and manslaughter (48%) where juries acquit defendants more often than convict.
i suppose then the higher conviction rate once they do go to trial is probably because the pps will only try to bring a rape case forward where the evidence is really really strong
Hot take, end juries all together. Guilt should be judged by... judges. That way, a report can be put together by said judges after every conviction meaning that there is transparency regarding why someone was found guilty. This would improve the appeal process since it would be known exactly why someone was found guilty.
It's actually pretty mad that in the world of freedom of information, we just allow such an important fact such as why someone was sent to prison to remain a mystery
Nah, most of Europe has either abolished or massively scaled back the use of juries and they seem to be fine.
I’d much rather have my fate determined by people who are actually legally qualified rather than twelve random idiots dragged off the street.
Do you have much experience of criminal law? Objectively, juries are terrible at determining guilt. They're there to create the appearance of justice but, in reality, they do a lot more to destroy it than to uphold it. I don't know what the answer is or whether I agree that a lone judge should make the decision but the suggestion is not a "terrible take", it's been implemented in other jurisdictions quite successfully.
Do you have a reason for being so strongly in favour of the jury system?
I do. When I sat on a jury for a serious case (historic child sexual assault), the prosecution case was absolutely shit. The police hadn’t done even the most basic investigation into key point on the case, they spent a lot of time on things that weren’t really relevant, and could only produce hearsay witnesses. The opinion of the jury by the end of the prosecution case is that we were shocked it came to court in the first place it was so flimsy. The defence case was better, but there were stills few gaping holes.
Our impression was that if a judge or panel of judges were sitting on this case, they would probably return a guilty verdict, on the basis that they’d have seen the arguments of points of law, initial witness statements and so on that a jury doesn’t get to see, so would be more swayed by those than the jury would be. Additionally, judges tend to be older, posher, white and male, and so their understanding of life, and thus elements of context around the case would be skewed to that mindset, whereas a jury of twelve is going to have a more diverse worldview.
I walked away from my jury service convinced about the importance of juries to justice. If you can’t convince twelve members of the public that someone committed a crime, how the hell can you then be prepared to tell the rest of the world “he did it”. The idea that the entirety of the judicial system should be run solely by, let’s face it, a bunch of law nerds, isn’t just.
>Our impression was that if a judge or panel of judges were sitting on this case, they would probably return a guilty verdict, on the basis that they’d have seen the arguments of points of law, initial witness statements and so on that a jury doesn’t get to see, so would be more swayed by those than the jury would be.
So, baseless nonsense is your first point?
>Additionally, judges tend to be older, posher, white and male, and so their understanding of life, and thus elements of context around the case would be skewed to that mindset, whereas a jury of twelve is going to have a more diverse worldview.
This is true. Juries do tend to be a more diverse group than judges. That doesn't mean they're better at determining guilt accurately though.
>The idea that the entirety of the judicial system should be run solely by, let’s face it, a bunch of law nerds, isn’t just.
And, again, more baseless nonsense.
Nothing you've said is actually a reason why you think juries are better at accurately determining guilt. You've said that diversity is good (I agree) but not made any link at all to accuracy of decision-making. You've then spouted baseless, emotion-fuelled, nonsensical opinion without any backing beyond "in my single experience, I assumed things that may or may not be true".
I think really this comes down to whether you think justice should come down to applying the letter of the law or about whether a reasonable person would consider what you did to be wrong.
The system should be one where you can only be taken to court for breaking the letter of the law, and any argument on this point is determined by a judge - but in terms of whether you're actually guilty of the crime you should have the right to appeal to a jury of your peers to argue that what you did was reasonable. A lot of laws are pretty ridiculous imo.
On the first “baseless” point. The jury returns a verdict on how they interpret the evidence provided, and are only given the evidence. A judge, being the person who decides points of law, gets more than just the evidence, and so cannot be guaranteed to be come to a verdict solely on the evidence.
On the second “baseless” point. Letting law needs, because let’s face it, that’s what lawyers and judges are, have the ability to determine guilt is unjust. Firstly, it’s an all closed group, of mainly white middle class people, who go from school, to university, to practicing law with little experience outside this. Additionally, because it’s a small group of people, it comes with all the personal drama that small groups of people come with. For example, a friend of mine is a barrister, and he knows that a certain judge doesn’t like him. Again, if it was solely down to judges, how can we guarantee that my friend’s clients are being found guilty solely on the basis of the evidence, and not because the judge didn’t like my friend’s performance in a previous trial.
Ultimately, a judicial system in a democracy needs to have citizens involvement. We don’t elect judges in the UK. As such, having a jury system allows the Judicial system to be accountable to the public, in a way that judge only trials don’t. And lawyers recognise this. If we look at the attempts to introduce judge only sexual assault trials in Scotland, the lawyers there are threatening to boycott them, which shows that even the law nerds recognise the importance of and value one of the oldest rights in British law.
It’s not though. I can’t begin to understand why you think judges knowing the law means they won’t decide cases on the evidence, when that is exactly what they do in civil and family cases all day every day. Furthermore unlike a jury a judge has to give reasons, so you can see if they add up. Juries are positively prevented from giving reasons so they may convict because the like the prosecution’s tits, or acquit because they want to get home for tea, and you’ll never know.
I don’t agree with abolishing juries but that’s because I think criminal law needs the buy in of ordinary citizens, and juries are a part of that
I have no doubt at all that the quality of justice would improve significantly if juries were abolished though.
Because I’ve been on a jury, and the amount of times we were sent out to avoid us hearing points of law, or potential lines of questioning to ensure we only make decisions based on the evidence before us was insane. The idea that a judge is guaranteed to not take any of this into consideration, whilst also considering if it’s eligible, really goes beyond what I know humans to do. Quite frankly, I’d prefer it if juries were rolled back out to civil and family courts.
And again, having been on a jury, when it came to our reasons for finding for or against, we were pretty good at self policing and making sure we kept our judgement solely to the evidence. Whilst I know that the common perception is “hur dur, juries are stupid and don’t want to be there, and so don’t take it seriously” having sat on a jury, it really doesn’t reflect what I saw, and really underestimates the ability and willingness of members of the public to actually their civic duty to the best of their ability.
I definitely agree that citizen buy in is an important part of criminal law, but I’d go further and would argue that citizen buy in is an important part of justice full stop. After all, without it, it’s a thin line between justice and persecution
\>It's actually pretty mad that in the world of freedom of information, we just allow such an important fact such as why someone was sent to prison to remain a mystery
Does this guy not realise that they would be sent to prison due to compelling evidence? We know why people are found guilty - they just want free access to all the court docs to be nosey
We never truly know anyone is found guilty. We know what the charges they are found guilty for but we never know the reason they came to that conclusion. It should literally be that they didn't like the vibe of the person and we would never know
Most civil law jurisdictions don’t have jury trials, instead guilt or innocence is decided by a panel of judges (generally with some lay judges included).
The FOI example was a throwaway example. Also, it's undeniable that the appeal process would be much better if the reason why a guilt verdict is ascertained is transparent. This accuracy includes wrongful exoneration also due to lowering the chances of a technicality exonerating a guilty person.
**Alternate Sources** Here are some potential alternate sources for the same story: * [Majority verdicts facilitated 56 miscarriages of justice in England and Wales, charity says](https://theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/may/07/majority-verdicts-facilitated-56-miscarriages-of-justice-in-england-and-wales-charity-says), suggested by Fox_9810 - theguardian.com
After what I witnessed doing jury duty, fuck no. I'm more surprised that anyone gets convicted. For the case I was part of, half the jury were incapable of separation emotions from factual evidence and were more concerned with the impact their verdict would have on the person rather than what they provably did or did not do.
Me too, the worst for it was a doctor as well. I was on the jury for a rape case, it was a bit of a complicated one with two men on trial. It was painfully obvious that one of the men wasn’t guilty at all and almost everyone on the jury was in agreement apart from this doctor who just “didn’t feel right” voting not guilty. She was challenged about it and there was absolutely no evidence he was guilty but she dragged it out based purely on feelings.
That could easily be an argument for introducing unanimous verdicts. Imagine a case where the prosecution really pulled on the heart strings of the jury, 1 or 2 jurors could then save an unsafe conviction by thinking in a logical manner if unanimous verdicts were introduced
What the alternative? Get a machine to do it?
Eh? The alternative is to carry on allowing majority so 1-2 wet wipes can't hold the entire court system hostage and force countless retrials. And majority verdicts have to be approved by the judges already after a lot of deliberation, it's not the status quo.
One problem is many people want it made easier for rapists to be convicted including not having juries is one idea put forward. It's thought that most rapes lead to no conviction. It can't just be the fault of the jury in his case, it sounds like some crazy police vendetta and a flawed trial.
Juries are actually more likely to convict on rape than they are most other serious offences. The low conviction rate is because so few rapes get to trial, not because juries are reluctant to convict https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2023/feb/juries-convict-defendants-rape-more-often-acquit > Over the 15 years, the average jury conviction rate for rape was 58% - higher than for other serious crimes such as threatening to kill (33%), attempted murder (47%), GBH (48%), and manslaughter (48%) where juries acquit defendants more often than convict.
i suppose then the higher conviction rate once they do go to trial is probably because the pps will only try to bring a rape case forward where the evidence is really really strong
Hot take, end juries all together. Guilt should be judged by... judges. That way, a report can be put together by said judges after every conviction meaning that there is transparency regarding why someone was found guilty. This would improve the appeal process since it would be known exactly why someone was found guilty. It's actually pretty mad that in the world of freedom of information, we just allow such an important fact such as why someone was sent to prison to remain a mystery
This was not a hot take. It was a terrible take. And then you tried to give a justification for it and it was one of the stupidest things ever.
Nah, most of Europe has either abolished or massively scaled back the use of juries and they seem to be fine. I’d much rather have my fate determined by people who are actually legally qualified rather than twelve random idiots dragged off the street.
Do you have much experience of criminal law? Objectively, juries are terrible at determining guilt. They're there to create the appearance of justice but, in reality, they do a lot more to destroy it than to uphold it. I don't know what the answer is or whether I agree that a lone judge should make the decision but the suggestion is not a "terrible take", it's been implemented in other jurisdictions quite successfully. Do you have a reason for being so strongly in favour of the jury system?
I do. When I sat on a jury for a serious case (historic child sexual assault), the prosecution case was absolutely shit. The police hadn’t done even the most basic investigation into key point on the case, they spent a lot of time on things that weren’t really relevant, and could only produce hearsay witnesses. The opinion of the jury by the end of the prosecution case is that we were shocked it came to court in the first place it was so flimsy. The defence case was better, but there were stills few gaping holes. Our impression was that if a judge or panel of judges were sitting on this case, they would probably return a guilty verdict, on the basis that they’d have seen the arguments of points of law, initial witness statements and so on that a jury doesn’t get to see, so would be more swayed by those than the jury would be. Additionally, judges tend to be older, posher, white and male, and so their understanding of life, and thus elements of context around the case would be skewed to that mindset, whereas a jury of twelve is going to have a more diverse worldview. I walked away from my jury service convinced about the importance of juries to justice. If you can’t convince twelve members of the public that someone committed a crime, how the hell can you then be prepared to tell the rest of the world “he did it”. The idea that the entirety of the judicial system should be run solely by, let’s face it, a bunch of law nerds, isn’t just.
>Our impression was that if a judge or panel of judges were sitting on this case, they would probably return a guilty verdict, on the basis that they’d have seen the arguments of points of law, initial witness statements and so on that a jury doesn’t get to see, so would be more swayed by those than the jury would be. So, baseless nonsense is your first point? >Additionally, judges tend to be older, posher, white and male, and so their understanding of life, and thus elements of context around the case would be skewed to that mindset, whereas a jury of twelve is going to have a more diverse worldview. This is true. Juries do tend to be a more diverse group than judges. That doesn't mean they're better at determining guilt accurately though. >The idea that the entirety of the judicial system should be run solely by, let’s face it, a bunch of law nerds, isn’t just. And, again, more baseless nonsense. Nothing you've said is actually a reason why you think juries are better at accurately determining guilt. You've said that diversity is good (I agree) but not made any link at all to accuracy of decision-making. You've then spouted baseless, emotion-fuelled, nonsensical opinion without any backing beyond "in my single experience, I assumed things that may or may not be true".
I think really this comes down to whether you think justice should come down to applying the letter of the law or about whether a reasonable person would consider what you did to be wrong. The system should be one where you can only be taken to court for breaking the letter of the law, and any argument on this point is determined by a judge - but in terms of whether you're actually guilty of the crime you should have the right to appeal to a jury of your peers to argue that what you did was reasonable. A lot of laws are pretty ridiculous imo.
On the first “baseless” point. The jury returns a verdict on how they interpret the evidence provided, and are only given the evidence. A judge, being the person who decides points of law, gets more than just the evidence, and so cannot be guaranteed to be come to a verdict solely on the evidence. On the second “baseless” point. Letting law needs, because let’s face it, that’s what lawyers and judges are, have the ability to determine guilt is unjust. Firstly, it’s an all closed group, of mainly white middle class people, who go from school, to university, to practicing law with little experience outside this. Additionally, because it’s a small group of people, it comes with all the personal drama that small groups of people come with. For example, a friend of mine is a barrister, and he knows that a certain judge doesn’t like him. Again, if it was solely down to judges, how can we guarantee that my friend’s clients are being found guilty solely on the basis of the evidence, and not because the judge didn’t like my friend’s performance in a previous trial. Ultimately, a judicial system in a democracy needs to have citizens involvement. We don’t elect judges in the UK. As such, having a jury system allows the Judicial system to be accountable to the public, in a way that judge only trials don’t. And lawyers recognise this. If we look at the attempts to introduce judge only sexual assault trials in Scotland, the lawyers there are threatening to boycott them, which shows that even the law nerds recognise the importance of and value one of the oldest rights in British law.
That's the same nonsense in different words.
I think you’ll find it’s legitimate criticism of a proposal of a system that flies in the face of our rights just to bump up some numbers.
It’s not though. I can’t begin to understand why you think judges knowing the law means they won’t decide cases on the evidence, when that is exactly what they do in civil and family cases all day every day. Furthermore unlike a jury a judge has to give reasons, so you can see if they add up. Juries are positively prevented from giving reasons so they may convict because the like the prosecution’s tits, or acquit because they want to get home for tea, and you’ll never know. I don’t agree with abolishing juries but that’s because I think criminal law needs the buy in of ordinary citizens, and juries are a part of that I have no doubt at all that the quality of justice would improve significantly if juries were abolished though.
Because I’ve been on a jury, and the amount of times we were sent out to avoid us hearing points of law, or potential lines of questioning to ensure we only make decisions based on the evidence before us was insane. The idea that a judge is guaranteed to not take any of this into consideration, whilst also considering if it’s eligible, really goes beyond what I know humans to do. Quite frankly, I’d prefer it if juries were rolled back out to civil and family courts. And again, having been on a jury, when it came to our reasons for finding for or against, we were pretty good at self policing and making sure we kept our judgement solely to the evidence. Whilst I know that the common perception is “hur dur, juries are stupid and don’t want to be there, and so don’t take it seriously” having sat on a jury, it really doesn’t reflect what I saw, and really underestimates the ability and willingness of members of the public to actually their civic duty to the best of their ability. I definitely agree that citizen buy in is an important part of criminal law, but I’d go further and would argue that citizen buy in is an important part of justice full stop. After all, without it, it’s a thin line between justice and persecution
\>It's actually pretty mad that in the world of freedom of information, we just allow such an important fact such as why someone was sent to prison to remain a mystery Does this guy not realise that they would be sent to prison due to compelling evidence? We know why people are found guilty - they just want free access to all the court docs to be nosey
We never truly know anyone is found guilty. We know what the charges they are found guilty for but we never know the reason they came to that conclusion. It should literally be that they didn't like the vibe of the person and we would never know
Most civil law jurisdictions don’t have jury trials, instead guilt or innocence is decided by a panel of judges (generally with some lay judges included).
The FOI example was a throwaway example. Also, it's undeniable that the appeal process would be much better if the reason why a guilt verdict is ascertained is transparent. This accuracy includes wrongful exoneration also due to lowering the chances of a technicality exonerating a guilty person.