Jury Advantages Disadvantages And Reforms Essay

In 1956 Lord Devlin professed that juries atomic number 18 the lamp that shows that freedom lives. Evaluate the accuracy of this educational activity with regard to the advantages and losss of rill by venire, the alternatives available and any reforms that return been introduced or recommended. You are to produce an prove as followsCritic solelyy appreciate pros and cons the arguments for and against psychometric test by control circuit card Discuss any reforms that take up been proposed or introduced and treasure these reforms pros and consThis essay exit evaluate the argument for and against the control board system, discuss and evaluate proposed or recent reforms to the ornament system in England and Wales. Finally, it lead charter the alternatives to the current control board system. For over unmatchable thousand years the gore system has been in place in the legal system, which to rough bum seem bizarre to ask twelves random mess with no gentility or ex perience in this field to decide somewhatone elses fate . At first the hold of the dialog box was providing local knowledge and acting more like witnesses rather than the decision incurrs that they are seen as today. They are now independent assessors of deciding fact. One advantage of trial by venire is public confidence. A control panel is considered by some as one of the fundamentals of a democratic gild and the redress to be tried by our peers has been supported by many famous settle. in that respect are also new qualifications for panel service enabling almost e trulyone a chance to serve on a jury and creating a cross section of conjunction.The use of a jury is very old and still takes place in society today screening that it must be a fair way to judge the criminate and that society must have confidence in the jury system. a nonher(prenominal) signifi discountt factor in the advantages of having a jury is jury equity. The long majority of people who are sele cted for jury service are non legal experts and have no previous end knowledge, they do non have to follow previous cases or acts of parliament when deciding whether or non a person is guilty. A further advantage of jury equity is not having to give a reason for the verdict that they have reached. This was put into place when Edward recreatel appealed against his treatment as a juror and he won the right for the jury to be able to come to their get decision even if thejudge does not agree (Bushells case 1670). Thirdly, the jury system is seen to be an open system of justice, meaning that a jury makes the legal system more open.This is because members of society are taking part in a vital role which makes the process public. A positive result of having lay people in speak to is that the integrity go away be kept much clearer because the majority of things said will have to be clearly explained to the jury and it also gives the defendant a chance to understand the case too. C onversely, the jury deliberate in hugger-mugger and do not have to give any reasons as to wherefore they have come to their decision, suggesting that the legal system is not in full open, remote judges who have to explain their reasoning for a judgement they have made and if they make any mistakes it is then known by another(prenominal)s and can be appealed against. A final point of advantages of juries is impartiality. A jury should of all time be impartial due to the way that they are selected. The process of the jury macrocosm selected is random and should create a cross section of society where the people all have different backgrounds and views resulting in any biases existence cancelled out. Having discussed the advantages of having a jury, it is important to also discuss the limitations too.A disadvantage of a jury would be perverse decisions. Earlier in the essay when discussing the advantages of a jury, jury equity was spoke roughly. However, this can also be seen a s a disadvantage because to some it is unjustified and perverse. An example of this would be the case R v Randle and Pottle (1991). Where the defendants were charged with helping a denounce escape from prison however this did not come about until it had been wrote about in a book twenty five years later. The jury acquitted the defendants and it was thought that they did that because of the length of time it had been since the offence and the time of the pursuance. Although privateness can be seen as an advantage to safeguard jurors from stresses of others, it can be considered a disadvantage too. The reason for this is because all of the deliberating is completed privately at that place is no way of anybody knowing if the jury did in fact fully understand the case. There is also no way of knowing if the jury have come to the verdict that they have chosen for all of the conciliate reasons.Bias is also another disadvantage although some people competency think that a jury cannot be biased because there are twelve people however there can still be prejudice which can then affect the verdict. An example would be that some people are biasedtowards the police which is why people with particularised criminal convictions are disqualified from sitting on a jury. another(prenominal) example would be Sander v United Kingdom (2000) one juror had written a letter to the judge explaining that some of the other jurors had been making racist remarks. The judge then asked the jury to search their consciences and the succeeding(a) day he received two letters, one signed by all of the jurors stating that there had been no racist remarks and the second letter from wholly one juror explaining that he had been the person making the racist jokes. patronage all of the letters and the case was allowed to continue with the same jury. However, the European coquet of Human Rights held that under those circumstances the judge should have discharged the jury because there was a p otential risk of racial bias.Each of the advantages and disadvantages make an important contribution to our understanding of our jury system and whether or not they are the best way to try defendants but despite all of the disadvantages with the jury system it is still used today which suggests that they must be an advantage rather than a disadvantage. Despite the criticisms of having a jury the popularity of them be largely undiminished and the best process available. Nevertheless, there could be some other alternatives to having a jury. One would be trial by a single judge, this method is mainly used in civil court cases it is also known for being a fairer, more predictable result. take down so, there is not much public confidence in the use of a trial by single judge to decide serious criminal cases. This is because judges can become case hardened and prose ignoreion minded.They are also known to be from very elite backgrounds and would not have much understanding of defendant s and their backgrounds. Another option would be a panel of judges just like in other European countries where three to five judges sit on a panel together. It seems like a better idea having a panel of judges rather than a single judge as the different views would ease out but the fact still remains that they can be case hardened, prosecution minded and come from an elite background. Having a panel of judges would be very expensive compared to a jury where they are not paid. In Scandinavian countries they have a system where a judge sits with two lay people. This does seem like it would be a good idea as the judge could provide legal expertness and the lay people offer a better view of society than the judge as it has already been established that judges are not a cross section of society, they are muchmore elite.There have been many reforms and proposals of reforms within the jury system. Some of the reforms are being drawn up to try and cut the costs of court cases as it could s ave around thirty million pounds per year. Juries in minor stealing cases, assaults, burglaries, some drug offences, criminal damage cases and some driving cases will be scrapped under the reforms, The Times reported. It seems there is a essential for some reforms to be made on the current system for it to shell out with modern crimes by keeping justice updated.Overall, having trial by jury for a numerous amount of years suggests that it is successful and must be sensible to keep it. Granting there are other alternatives that have been recommended to the jury system there have not been any better options as of yet to decide the fate of defendants. It seems likely that trial by jury is more of an advantage to the public than a disadvantage as explained ahead that the public would rather be tried by regular people rather than those of an elite background, so does this suggest that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? It seems that trial by jury will still continue for many y ears and will remain to be an asset to society.BibliographyMartin J. (2011) OCR Law for AS Second EdFamous cases Bushels case in 1670 Brightside. 2015. Famous cases Bushels case in 1670 Brightside. ONLINE Available at http//www.brightknowledge.org/knowledge-bank/law-and-politics/features-and-resources/independent-juries-bushel2019s-case-1670. Accessed 29 January 2015. tribulation by jury faces chop in thousands of cases as courts try to cut costs Daily military post Online. 2015. Trial by jury faces axe in thousands of cases as courts try to cut costs Daily Mail Online. ONLINE Available at http//www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2087212/Trial-jury-faces-axe-thousands-cases-courts-try-cut-costs.htmlixzz3QFUAxgyj. Accessed 29 January 2015.