Facebooking juror gets 8 months Joanne Fraill, the juror who admitted contacting an acquitted defendant during a drugs trial, has been sentenced to eight months in prison. The 40-year-old was a juror in a drugs trial when she contacted Jamie Sewart, who had been acquitted earlier in the trial. Sewart got two months, suspended for two years for contempt of …
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If ignorance is no defence of the law, I fail to see how having a young child is a mitigating factor.
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I'd usually agree with you, but the defendent had already served time on remand for a crime she was found innocent of, so common sense says not to seperate her from her kid again.
Found not guilty. There is a huge difference.
People are routinely found not guilty even though all the jury members thing they are guilty. Finding someone guilty requires the test of "beyond reasonable doubt". Thus even if the jury thinks they are likely guilty, but there is some doubt, the person can be found not guilty.
This is a nice little clause that defence lawyers often use. Muddy the water, create some doubt and befuddle the jury.
Even judges can be pretty stupid at times. That's the point of a jury. Its a collection of reasonably random people some of whom may be very stupid but will be ignored/converted/outvoted by the majority.
Studies show that juries, on the whole, usually get things right and in this area are probably more reliable than any other method of determining guilt.
Unless you want to revert to the witch test of course ...
>>"Even judges can be pretty stupid at times. That's the point of a jury. Its a collection of reasonably random people some of whom may be very stupid but will be ignored/converted/outvoted by the majority.
Even judges can be pretty stupid at times. That's the point of a jury. Its a collection of reasonably random people some of whom may be very stupid but will be ignored/converted/outvoted by the majority."
So you're basing a judgement on the quality of juries on juries which generally operate within a fairly definite set of restrictions.
Would you be as confident about the quality of judgements if there were a free-for-all about what jury members could do in terms of research, contacting defendants and/or witnesses, etc?
Since that seems to be pretty much the whole point.
For a start, that'd frequently end up with people being judged at least partially on the basis of past convictions or accusations or gossip, where such information was on the internet, and some of the time, with people being judged partly on the basis of convictions/accusations/gossip against people who just happened to have the same or a similar name.
Surely, one of the key points of a criminal trial is that the evidence that a jury bases their verdict on is should be a matter of record, and therefore open to future review?
In a case that isn't open-and-shut, if a guilty verdict results partly from people doing their own private research (which they may well screw up, especially if they're not very bright), how can someone challenge the verdict if there's nothing actually flawed in the evidence that was presented in court and recorded?
What studies?
Seems to me that it is pretty much impossible to know if the jury got it right.
The real problem with a jury is that they are easily misdirected.
If I was ever to be tried, I'd rather it be by someone that actually understands the law rather than the random sweepings from the street.
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Apart from the dodgy stuff going on in family courts where the state uses secrecy to protect its abuses, trials tend to have a public gallery where people are free to go and observe.
It's still not a good idea for a juror to discuss anything about a case while it's in progress, but once the trial is concluded, commenting on the public bits (but not on any jury discussions of those bits) doesn't seem unreasonable.
Many people are nervous of doing jury service, so it would be better if jurors are able to discuss the overall experience, if not the specific cases.
>>"Many people are nervous of doing jury service, so it would be better if jurors are able to discuss the overall experience, if not the specific cases."
I thought that in the UK jurors *could* talk about the general experience?
I'm sure I heard some people doing just that on the radio a few months ago.
I've been on jury duty 3 times now and I'm amazed at the depth and number of morons that get to decide these cases. The system is flawed, most people with a bit of brains will do anything to get out of jury services, be that cause there company wont pay them or because its such a huge ball ache. Whereas the morons and lay abouts of the world love the jury summons, while I was there on my first experience we had 2 jurors refuse to give opinions or decide anything, was the evidence not so good? was there some legal issue? no. one decided she wasnt going to have anything to do with it because 'the police are shit' a statement I fully agree with but hardly related and the other one, bless her, refused to get involved as her son was the same age as the 'defendant' and could never have done the things hes accused of, seriously I shit you not.
That sounds so similar to my experience it makes me wonder if we were on the same jury.
I did my jury duty late 70s/early 80s and there where 2 people with similar attitudes. One of them wouldn't find anybody guilty just in case she got it wrong and the other because one of the defendants was a boxer and her brother was a boxer therefore the defendant couldn't be guilty!
I am continuously surprised that anybody is ever found guilty in a jury trial
> > most people with a bit of brains will do anything to get out of jury service"
> Not sure I'd want my fate to be in the hands of a bunch of self-serving arseholes like that, however clever they might be.
Absolutely. Serving on a jury is a civic duty, and 'getting out of it' is simply selfish and anti-social. Equally so is watching your fellow jurors ignore or abuse the process without informing the judge.
'Serving on a jury is a civic duty, and 'getting out of it' is simply selfish and anti-social."
And what if, like me, you run a one-man business? Who is going to take the orders, answer the phone, make products and post them out whilst I'm sitting in a Jury Room?
I have had to decline the opportunity to do Jury Service twice because I simply *cannot afford* to do it.
I never signed any contract of loyalty & I never verbally agreed to any loyalty to this country, its policies or its laws.
I had UK citizenship forced upon me & I cant surrender it without hamstringing myself & preventing myself from being able to work or leave the country (and be able to come back)
I see no reason why I should sit on any jury
All summons should be returned to sender with the folllowing on the envelope 'No such entity & no such contract'
What an offensive little oik.
I wonder how many benefits of UK citizenship you reject along with your obligations. Have you ever, or do you ever intend to, used any public services of any sort in the country with which you feel you have 'no such contract'?
If you don't agree with this country's 'policies or laws', then perhaps you should do something about it - exercising you rights as a citizen, or you should go find a country that you do agree with.
> Not sure I'd want my fate to be in the hands of a bunch of self-serving arseholes like that, however clever they might be.
If you were the victim then you would certainly want "a bunch of self-serving arseholes like that" who could see beyond "he's wearing nikes therefore he's innocent" and actually attempt to weigh the evidence.
If you were the defendant then you would certainly want "a bunch of self-serving arseholes like that" who could see beyond the "he owns an Audi and lives in the posh part of town therefore he's guilty" and weigh the actual evidence.
Morons, by definition, are unable to weigh evidence and justice is best served by those who can, whether they be "self-serving arseholes", welfare claimants, old age pensioners, students or any other person who has the ability to think.
>>"Magistrates find 90% of defendants guilty vs 66% of Juries. Most people try to argue for a jury trial for that reason."
If that's what people do, isn't that pretty shaky logic?
For a start, magistrates hear different kinds of cases, generally less-serious ones, and in addition to that, there can be all kinds of confounding factors and feedbacks between perceptions and outcomes.
People (jurors or magistrates) might feel they need a higher standard of proof the more serious the offence and the more serious the potential punishment. That could easily lead to growing bias against conviction for crimes which juries see rather than magistrates.
Even for cases of equal seriousness which could be heard in either court, if there was a /perception/ that a jury will be fairer, that could result in people with a more arguable case (whether they're actually innocent, guilty, or somewhere in between) opting for jury trial more frequently than people with a less hopeful case, (who may be rather more likely to be guilty).
If that was the case, even if juries and magistrates were equally fair, if the perception was that juries were fairer, that could result in juries acquitting more often simply because the perception skewed the patterns of cases that juries saw compared to magistrates.
Etc.
What candy covered land do you live in?
Having been attacked by mindless, teenage thugs because I walked past them I can tell you the best you'll get from the police is "Yeah we know who you described but there's no cctv camera there so we can't do anything." and "Do you think the brick they threw at your head is still there? Could you find it?". I have not been past that spot since (2 years ago now) and definitely was not returning that night to look for the brick that gave me 13 stitches next to my left eye.
I was also jumped on by group of thugs once about 20 years ago, dispite doing my damdest to avoid a physical confrontation. The result was I was the one pulled of the the Police to save the thugs. Of course once realising who they were and getting the facts the police informaly told me that next time, don't mess about and kick the shit out of them and do us all a favour; And would I like to press charges this time, which I didn't. Never had any trouble from those people again, indeed they were overly friendly last I saw of them - but when your crushing a mans lungs in a leg hold and about to snap the little finger right of on there main hand which would of casued them to passout more than likely with pain and reduced resistance to the ribcage etcs it ws just as well the police did pull me of when they did, though they did regret it once they found out why and who I was ontop of.
Remember a Poleman/Women have to be impartial and whilst they might fully know that X and Y did the crime they have to be able to prove it for procecution and in this country it's biased towards innocent and until we adopt the scottish system of innocent/guilty/not proven I feel we will only propergate the culture of "it won't float so lets not even try".
This is why the jurer is doing time, becasue it's not common to be able to prove so beyond a shadow of a doubt that when they can it's a no brainer to lock them up, as it should be.
I would also like to see that she is not allowed to profit from any of this as you can bet there is a book/story/film that could be made out of this, indeed anything stupid usualy ends up that way. Take jackass, without a TV camera it's ASBO training camp material. Throw egg's at a house, ew trouble, do it with a cameraman filming and people will just accept what your doing as fine.
Still what aspect of "you can't talk about Jury club" did she not understand as everybody else does or they wouldn't be eligable to do jury duty in the first place as they would be too stupid.
But are the Police shit - NO, are some of the rules/procedure/support/backend they have shit - maybe. But its a better system than alot of other countries and will only get better and better. That said personly anybody who does facebook needs locking up, but thats just me and my mentality that I never did a diary as a child and the aspect of having one public to me makes no sence. I do IM/EMAIL, heck even use a phone to make calls and have been known to meet people face to face. Sure I see it has use's, but none of them essential. For anything positive you can find more negatives and this lady just proved that. Still one bit of good news, with there new photo identifiying software we will finaly find out were Waldo is - for those that care that is.
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