A trial by jury essay

After the complete establishment of the jury trial it operated without any remarkable changes, but at the end of the 20th century the public attention was drawn again to the problems connected with jury reliability, rationality, experience and bias.

This report presented the main drawbacks of the existing trial system — poor ethnic minority representation, lack of experienced jurors who represent different social layers and the game character of the trial process, where the truth is not so important as victory Davies et al.

The recommendations given in this review were partly brought into life with the adoption of the Criminal Justice Act , which altered greatly the jury system in UK and Wales and introduced the following innovations: 1 jury trial was not to be used for certain fraud cases and cases where a danger of jury tampering existed; 2 the jury selection system had to be improved in order to provide more experienced and unbiased people representing different social groups and ethnic minorities Gibson, The statistics show that trial by jury is actually very rare.

But not only these restrictions make the access to jury trial very complicated. The main argument here lies in two most essential disadvantages of the trial by jury — its enormous expensiveness and long periods of time to be held. These problems make the jury trial extremely inconvenient and exhausting both for the defendant and the jurors as they are ordinary people who have to spend lot of their time getting through the court procedures and participating in the trial process.

The qualification rules for the jurors are also often criticized. As we know, according to the Juries Act there are several qualifications for people willing to serve as juries: 1 the person should be registered as a Parliamentary or local government elector; 2 the person should be not less than 18 and not more than 65 years old; 3 the jury should have been ordinarily resident in the UK for a period of at least five years since his or her thirteenth birthday Davies et al.

The ineligible persons include past and present members of the judiciary, other people who have been concerned with the administration of justice, the clergy and mentally ill people. The CJA disqualifies individuals who have served a sentence of penal servitude in the past ten years, have been sentenced to a term of lifetime penal servitude or who have been released on bail pending trial at the time the jury is summoned. But my opinion is that the main problems are caused not by these qualifications, rules or governmental restrictions.

No, these problems lie in the human nature and in the fact that the jurors are subject to human errors. Even if selected according to the rules, some of them are well educated and some are not; some are very responsible and some are not, some try to get better understanding of the case and the evidence and some are just trying to return home as soon as possible. And if we want to answer the question whether the trial by jury should be retained, we must carefully examine the advantages and disadvantages of this process in order to find out whether its benefits surpass its lacks….

The main advantages of the jury trial are: 1 as there are many persons who have different life experience, knowledge and position, greater part of the individual prejudices is likely to be cancelled out; 2 the jurors are likely to judge in line with generally accepted values of the society and the public trusts the jury verdicts; 3 the discussion between the jurors makes it possible to analyze all aspects of the case and make a fair decision; 4 it is more difficult to corrupt and bribe twelve jurors than just one judge.

The only legal requirement for a juror is that he knows the facts involved in case being tried. The judge guides the juries in determining the facts they can admit into evidence and the ones they must exclude. Many jurors encounter complicated problems far beyond their training and experience. But the jurors are not only unskilled and inexperienced, they often disregard logic presented by the lawyers because of their prejudices, past experience or moral sentiment.

Many of them are likely to follow the majority and make the same verdict as the stronger personalities who impose their opinion. For some jury members it is better to go with the majority and return home sooner than try to understand the evidence and make their own independent conclusion. For the use of a trial by juror to be effective, no bias should exists in the jurors judgments, the jurors should understand clearly their role and key legal terms, and the jury system should represent the communities standards and views whilst upholding the rights of the accused and society and remain cost and time effective.

The jury system is effective in upholding the rights of the defendant and society. Recent reforms have also led to a more time and cost-effective way of using a jury as the third party in the adversary system.

Also, the responsibility of the judgment of guilty or not guilty is made by twelve of the accused peers instead of one, reducing the impact of potential bias in the judgment and hence upholding the right of the accused to a fair, non-bias trial.

This amendment was introduced after the Bruce Burrell case where, after two weeks of deliberations, all jurors were firmly in favor of one verdict except for one who was firmly against the majority verdict. The case illustrated the vulnerabilities of the previous jury system in creating a time and cost ineffective measure of trialing defendants where justice was not necessarily achieved.

These recent reforms in legislation have led to the jury system being more cost and time effective in the criminal trial. Allowing a majority vote instead of strict unanimous verdict reduces the risk of a hung jury and hence prevents jury bribing and jury disagreements. African Americans everywhere should be able to use their rights earned by four long years of bloodshed, and not be dampened by the courts.

But the court overlooked the fact that it was an state law, and not private policy, and deemed the segregation private and thus legal. After the closing arguments from both the prosecution and defense attorney, the jury will deliberate. Jury deliberation takes place in seclusion, and jury instructions from the judge will be made clear, any evidence will be reviewed, testimony and witness credibility will be taken into consideration, as well as the charges.

Subsequently, the jury will reach a verdict and the judge, defendants, prosecution attorney, defense attorney, and accused will reconvene in the courtroom for the verdict to be read aloud by the jury foreman Gaines and Miller, , p. Once the verdict has been read, the trial process has concluded.

Skipping over the first two brings us to jury duty, which many feel to be a nuisance, but really, is it? Our right to a jury trial is one of the foundations our country was built on. In a real trial a jury is meant to entail a large cross section of the community where members of the public are randomly selected on the electoral roll. For this case I participated in the jury it was evident that the there were both strength and weakness to the system.

A strength of the jury system that was shown is the attentiveness they showed during the trial despite a few time it was clear most people took there time to analyse and think about the case to make a clear decision. Introduction The quote The quote cited by Antoine reflected the attitude towards the concept of trial by jury prior to the 20th century. The view then, was that the jury system was believed to be an inviolable right; one of the chief safeguards of rights against the abuse of judicial power.

I think that I would like to be on a jury and experience what is required of a juror, I think everyone should be a member of the jury at least once in their lifetime.

Especially in a murder case involving children or battered women. When the judge gives you direction to please disregard that statement. Every country has its methods to determine how a case is to be tried. It is within the prerogative of every state to determine the best approach in a court trial while considering the immortal principles of natural justice.

This essay compares the adjudicatory process of two countries: Nigeria and the United States of America. In fact, a jury is the sole decider, based. Evaluate the accuracy of this statement with regard to the advantages and disadvantages of trial by jury, the alternatives available and any reforms that have been introduced or recommended.

You are to produce an essay as follows Critically evaluate pros and cons the arguments for and against trial by jury Discuss any reforms that have been proposed or introduced and evaluate these reforms pros and cons This essay will evaluate. Trial by jury can be traced back to the 12th Century and has been an integral part of the criminal justice system since Henry II favoured it over trial by ordeal Davies, Croall and Tyrer , p. Although they are used in both crown court trials and civil cases, the introduction of the Administration of Justice Act has reduced the use of juries in civil cases significantly Joyce , p.

However, they are only used in about one third of cases in the Crown Court Huxley-Binns and Martin, p. Since the 19th Century, the statutory provisions for jury service have been amended and revised considerably resulting in the Criminal Justice Act