Secret Squirrel has detected in Britain,developing out of legislations brought in by the New Labour Party of one Tony Blair,a very great inequity,inequality, and inequity,of course,namely that of raising the spectre of, and making possible, trial,forced trial, by that of judge alone, circumventing the great and respectable and fair trial by the right of jury of ones peers,a grave injustice visited on the people.This has occurred already in one case,and at the same time there has been now raised the question of should we limit right to jury trial to save cash?This is the question being raised in Britain today.
Well, it seems the improper thing to do,speed up justice, yes, but not having jury trial raises the spectre much more readily of false convictions,the adage being two heads are better than one.Well 6-12 are certainly so very much better considering evidence and what have we.In life, in all truth,false accusations are possible, mistaken identity also rears its head, and are much more likely to be ferreted out by more heads pondering a particular case.
The right to a jury trial in Britain has its roots in the 1215 Magna Carta,to remove the right to jury trial critics state, raises the spectre of Soviet-style trials controlled solely by judges resulting in a Khafkaesque mockery of justice.Recent research shows that Russian juries acquit in nine per cent of cases compared with one per cent of cases tried by judges sitting alone.There is the adage, It is better to let one guilty man go free, than to convict an innocent.The cost of justice? The only cost of justice is that when an innocent is convicted.........
Here we have exampled at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11683903
The BBC's Clive Coleman examined proposals to save money in the legal system in England and Wales, including limiting the right to jury trial.
Theft of a bicycle might seem like a minor crime in terms of the monetary value of the bicycle but it is likely to be regarded as highly important to the accused.
If they are convicted and get a criminal record for an offence of dishonesty, it could affect their life in a major way. Job applications, foreign travel, university applications and a host of other things could be adversely affected by having to declare the conviction.
The right to jury trial traces its roots back to Magna Carta in 1215 and is regarded as a key constitutional right.
The late judge Lord Devlin described it as "the lamp that shows that freedom lives". When charged with an "either way" offense and given the choice between trial by jury and trial in a magistrates' court, many people will elect jury trial.
The reasons vary but some feel that magistrates are more likely to be "case hardened" than juries. Others will say that magistrates cannot be as representative of the community as a jury of 12 randomly selected individuals.
The Commissioner for Victims of Crime Louise Casey said almost 70,000 Crown Court cases each year could be heard in magistrates' courts, saving £30m.
She is keen to stress that trial in a magistrates court is not second-class justice. It is though, a different form of justice.
There is no question that trial in the magistrates court is cheaper, at about half the cost of jury trial. Debate will rage as to whether the saving is worth the sacrifice of the right in some "either way" offenses.
Ms Casey's other proposal to save money which could then go to support the victims of serious crime, is to prevent late guilty pleas which, she says, allow criminals to string out their cases at public expense.
Fixed fees
There are existing sanctions to prevent late guilty pleas. Lawyers who stretch cases out can be punished with "wasted costs" orders. Defendants will get a reduction in the discount on any sentence if they plead "at the doors of the court".
The current guideline provides for a one-third discount if a guilty plea is entered at the first reasonable opportunity. That reduces down to a 10th if the plea is entered at or near to the trial.
Louise Casey refers to the possibility of a fixed fee for lawyers in a case where a
defendant pleads guilty. The fee would be paid irrespective of when the guilty plea is entered.
That raises the worry that some lawyers might be tempted to pressurise defendants to plead guilty early and before a full assessment of the evidence has taken place.
There will be a variety of reasons why. In nearly 50,000 cases defendants change their plea to guilty on the day of the trial.
Defense lawyers maintain that it is sometimes because the Crown Prosecution Service have charged the accused incorrectly, or that case papers have been delivered late.
Some defendants will undoubtedly delay pleading guilty to see if the prosecution can produce the victim and witnesses at court. That may be seen as a cynical gaming of the system, or simply putting the state to proof of the offense.
Much of what the others said is highly accurate. The single largest advantage is exactly the point made above that 12 minds have 12 histories and they must reach a concensus. The other realistic advantage is what another said, the 12 are far more likely to be like the accused than the judge who has been largely removed from what I call a "real life" for some time (i.e. - worrying about gas and grocery money, etc.).The disadvantage of a jury trial is that, in a conservative area, the jury members can be too trusting of a police officer/security officer as being infallible in their perceptions or memory. On the flip side, if the state's primary witness is a no-good sonofagun who has been to court far more than the present accused, the judge will know that and the jury won't, thereby making the judge more likely to believe the accused than the "victim." (to buttress anyone with misconceptions, it is not always possible to get the "victim's" record heard by the jury.) The judges know the fallibilities of the system, sometimes making them better factfinders for a trial, but largely a jury is the way to go.
The jury needs to,and does, reach some kind of consensus, and the theory is that a group is less likely to be carried away by individual irrationalities.English common law and the United States Constitution recognize the right to a jury trial
to be a fundamental civil liberty or civil right that allows the accused to choose
whether to be judged by judges or a jury. The use of jury trials evolved within common law systems rather than civil law systems.Jury determination of questions of law, sometimes called jury nullification, cannot be overturned by a judge if doing so would violate legal protections against double jeopardy. Although a judge can throw out a guilty verdict if it was not supported by the evidence, a jurist has no authority to override a verdict that favors a defendant.
It was established in Bushel's Case that a judge cannot order the jury to convict, no matter how strong the evidence is. In civil cases, a special verdict can be given, but in criminal cases, a general verdict is rendered, because requiring a special verdict could apply judicial pressure to the jury, and because of the jury's historic function of tempering rules of law by common sense brought to bear upon the facts of a specific case.There existed in Ancient Athens a mechanism through which it was assured that no one could select jurors, called dikastaí, for their own trial. For normal cases, the courts were made up of dikastai of 501 citizens. For capital cases, those which involved death, the loss of liberty, exile, the loss of civil rights, the way they voted was kept secret
because the jurists would hold their disk by the axle by thumb and forefinger, thus
hiding whether its axle was hollow or solid. Since Periclean times, jurists were
compensated for their sitting in court, with the amount of one day's wages.
The institution of trial by jury was first ritually depicted by Aeschylus in the Eumenides, the third and final play of his Oresteia trilogy. In this play the innovation is brought about by the goddess Athena, who summons twelve citizens to sit as jury. The god Apollo takes part in the trial as the advocate for the defendant Orestes, and the Furies as prosecutors for the slain Clytaemnestra. In the event the jury is split six to six, and Athena dicates that in such a case the verdict should henceforth be for acquittal. It is thought that the reason Aeschylus chose to present trial by jury as conforming to divine will was because the institution was relatively new at the time the play was produced. Before then, trials were heard and decided upon by the Areopagus, a council of elders of aristocratic descent, who were members for life.
In countries where jury trials are common, juries are often seen as an important check against state power. Other common assertions about the benefits of trial by jury is that it provides a means of interjecting community norms and values into judicial proceedings and that it legitimizes the law by providing opportunities for citizens to validate criminal statutes in their application to specific trials. Alexis de Tocqueville also claimed that jury trials educate citizens about self-government. Many also believe that a jury is likely to provide a more sympathetic hearing, or a fairer one, to a party who is not part of the government – or other establishment interest – than would representatives of the state.
Juries particularly serve as a filter of the small town phenomenon, that of a
prejudiced,corruptable,highly influenceable.............single......trial by highly influenced,influenceable,judge...Da Man..........who will or will not convict on the basis of local notoriaty,patronage,politics,social and civil status,and other such influences.
Whilst those of social status are very much comfortable, for those not so one must
consider the words of Bob Dylan in his song, Most Likely You Go Your Way And I Go
Mine....
Well,the judge,he holds a grudge
He's gonna call on you
But he's badly built and he walks on stilts
Watch out he don't fall on you
The American jury system was inherited from medieval England, where panels of 12 “free and lawful” men in each community were summoned to help the king do justice. For centuries these panels based their decisions on what they knew of local wrongdoing. But as England became more populous, these jurors usually could not rely on neighborhood gossip and increasingly based their decisions on evidence they heard in court. By the time the American legal system absorbed the British model, U.S. jurors were admonished to ignore anything they might know about the case and decide the facts solely on the evidence presented in court.
The British had regarded jury trials as a potential bulwark against oppressive actions by the king, but there was a more pragmatic reason for retaining trial by jury. English law contained harsh penalties, including the death penalty, for relatively petty crimes. British juries served to soften the impact of this by acquitting defendants or finding them guilty of lesser crimes.merican law did not pose this problem, but the American Colonists in the 18th century had their own reason for retaining trial by jury — they used it as a shield to block what they saw as oppressive prosecutions by the British.
Repeatedly, the British rulers indicted Americans for illegally shipping goods in
non-British vessels, only to have local juries acquit the accused. When the prominent American publisher John Peter Zenger was brought to trial for criticizing a governor appointed by the British king, a New York jury found him not guilty and created an early precedent for freedom of the press. So as the Americans moved toward revolution, it was not surprising that in their Declaration of Independence they denounced the British king “for depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury.”And when the new nation adopted its Bill of Rights in 1791, it specified that “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” It also provided that the right to jury trials in civil cases should be preserved.
To some extent, the right of trial by jury appears more imposing than it is in reality because in practice the vast majority of accused persons do not invoke their right to a jury trial. They realize that if they go to trial before a jury and are found guilty, their own misconduct will have been highlighted by the testimony and the judge will tend to hand down a heavy punishment. So they enter into a plea bargain with the prosecutor — they agree to plead guilty to a lesser offense in exchange for a reduced sentence. The prosecution often agrees to plea bargains because it is spared the trouble, expense, and uncertainty of going to trial. In many jurisdictions more than nine out of 10 prosecutions are resolved in this way, without a jury trial.
Despite the problems, the jury system is on a sound footing in the United States. Jurors wield the awesome power of the state to punish, or not to punish, citizens. In that sense, they stand above the sovereign — and that has made them the subject of fascination around the world.So what occured in January of this year(it being historically 2010)?Well the headlines read......
First British Non-Jury Trial in 400 Years
The Royal Courts of Justice are leaving this one to the judges, and given what a mess has ensued to date, it’s no wonder:
It is the first time a major criminal trial has been heard without a jury in a British court in more than 400 years. The case in question was that of a £1.75m armed robbery alleged to have been carried out by John Twomey, Peter Blake, Barry Hibberd and Glen Cameron at a warehouse at Heathrow in February 2004.The peerless English justice system may become literally that: eventually no more decisions by one’s peers at all.and ...........
A break with tradition: trial without jury in England
The first criminal trial without a jury to take place in England and Wales in more than 400 years begins tomorrow.
For 400-years trial-by-jury has been a right for all those accused of a crime in the United Kingdom. In 2003, the Criminal Justice Act gave judges the power to order a no-jury trial where "there is evidence of a real and present danger that jury tampering would take place" and where any steps taken to prevent it, such as police protection for jurors, would not be effective. There are some suggestions that this is a money saving exercise .
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1326079/Petty-criminals-lose-right-jury-trial-Victims-Commissioner-urges.html
Thousands of petty criminals should lose their right to a jury trial, a report argues today.
Victims’ Commissioner Louise Casey said low-level offenders were ‘clogging up’ the courts system and should be tried by magistrates.
The right to opt for trial by jury in the crown court was a ‘nicety’ of the legal
system.............
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1193877/First-trial-jury-Judge-sit-hear-case-claims-jurors-nobbled.html
First trial with no jury: Judge will sit alone to hear case after claims jurors were 'nobbled'
The accused men were arrested in 2004 for a bungled robbery of a Heathrow warehouse.
Their trial has already been started and abandoned several times at huge cost.A Crown Court criminal trial is to be heard without a jury for the first time after a historic legal ruling yesterday.
Amid concerns of jury nobbling in a robbery case, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, agreed that it could be heard by a judge sitting alone.
It is the first use of this power since it came into force in England and Wales in 2007.
The 'judge only' trial will be the fourth one concerning a heist at Heathrow airport five years ago.
The first two juries were discharged after failing to reach a verdict, and then a judge had to suspend the third trial after he said 'a serious attempt at jury tampering had taken place'.
He added that there was a 'real and present danger' it could happen again.
The case concerns four men accused of stealing sacks of cash from the airport's Menzies World Cargo warehouse after tricking their way in with the help of an inside man in February 2004.
Trial without jury is not actually unheard of in the UK. "Diplock courts" were
established in Northern Ireland in 1972 to try some scheduled offences in order to
overcome jury intimidation during the Troubles.
http://www.metafilter.com/88198/A-break-with-tradition-trial-without-jury-in-England
BUT,just as in medieval England, where they got started, juries prevent government, even democratic government, from pursuing oppressive prosecutions.Proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to jurorscan be a stiff test. While a chance
exists that a guilty man or woman might go free after a jury
trial, the jury system still beats any other system.A judge needs to make jurors
understand they are like deputized judges sworn to fairness. A classic 1966 study by
two University of Chicago professors, Harry Kalven and Hans Zeisel, involving 3,576
criminal trials and more than 4,000 civil trials, asked the trial judges, who heard the same evidence as the jurors, to render their own verdict before they learned what the jury decided. Judges and juries agreed about 80 percent of the time.What about the other 20 percent? The study showed that jurors understood the evidence and the law in those cases, but simply differed from the judges in the perspectives and values they applied to the issues. In short, the juries applied community standards while the judges applied technical legal standards. That study’s findings have been replicated many times.
Sadly this new development in the British court system,was brought about by, and out of,of course, the rule of one New Labour gent(highly questionable),Tony Blair (who also saw to it his wife, one Cherie Blair, was made a judge,again revealing the smarmy side of things judicial,that of political appointment versus a fairer electoral system).A sad,repugnant development, one which the existent incumbent government must,for the general good of the people of Britain, must overturn.Jury trials should be a total and complete and utter right of the people,the only sound option.Trial by judge alone, can and should be,as THEY wish, that being any accused, an option,but the right to trial by jury a specific and unalienable right in the very first.
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