Letter regarding Jury Service system changes

[kitty]

i feel that its about time that juries should be equal numbers
of men & women. i also agree each juror should be required to provide
a statement of his/ her reasoning


i also feel that woman that have been raped should not be aloud to go on
jury dutie as the vicarious revenge factor is too high as they
could not help but to take in to account there known experencie

take care
kitty

[webmoo]

Ok, firstly, I fully agree with pretty much everything kitty has just said - these would be very good points to raise.

To the letter:

Originally posted by Para A
The Broadcaster Forum is an internet discussion group that debates various aspects of the British legal system

I'd prefer this to read "The Broadcaster Forum is an internet discussion group that debates, amongst other issues, various aspects of the British legal system."

Para 1:
A bit of a re-write, and sounding a bit more like legalise, but how about (incorporating those comments above from kitty):

When a person receives a summons for jury service, they should be seen by their own GP. The GP must then declare that they are able to perform jury service without any issue, medical or otherwise, that would compromise their ability to pay full attention to and make informed, unbiased decisions upon the evidence presented and the proceedings of the case.
These issues may include:
<ul>[*]Any physical disability or medical complaint[*]The usage of any drugs, prescribed or otherwise. [*]Dependency upon alcohol or any other substance with similar effects.[*]Personally suffering or being a close friend or relative of someone who has suffered a past experience similar to the one being debated in the court case.[/list]

We feel that the persons GP should be their own as they are likely to be more honest and open with them, particularly regarding their usage of any illegal substances or any fears they may have regarding past experiences.

Para 4:
It&#39;s not quite clear if you mean they should sign to the fact both that they are interested in the trial, and that they are not associated with the personnel involved. Perhaps a better way of phrasing it would be:
??the usher should ask if all present are happy and able to sign a declaration to the effect that they are not related to or in any way associated with those personnel involved in the trial proceedings, including all witnesses and the legal teams for both prosecution and defence. If any are not able to sign, or if any member of the trial personnel objects to their presence on the jury, they should not be permitted to partake in the trial.? The clause about the penalty should stay in.

Para 5:
Sorry, I don&#39;t quite understand what is meant by this. Could you clarify it a bit?

Para 7:
The PO Box address would be very good. However, I do feel a fax number is needed here too. I&#39;m sure MP&#39;s use fax - our fax machine at work is chugging in or out stuff virtually all day every day - it&#39;s still very much used by the business world.
When the letter is finished, I&#39;ll start a new thread here for their replies and include its address in Para 7 - it may never see a single post, but it&#39;s worth a try&#33;

[diana_holbourn]

Sorry to be critical, but I&#39;m a bit concerned that overall, again, the proposals sound academic and abstract, since you haven&#39;t given any background information as to why you feel they&#39;re necessary, like research that has found that jury decisions are being badly affected by the participation of alcoholics. The question they&#39;re going to be left with is: Why change a system that might work perfectly allright? I think you need to do more convincing.

Paragraph A:

I think they need to be given clear discussion aims. I think you ought to ask them if they are sympathetic to your proposals for change and whether they actually intend to do anything about them, and if so, what?

Also, I think you should state that the forum&#39;s discussion of the legal system is generally in relation to rape, but that you believe this discussion applies to all crimes.

I&#39;m not sure your idea about videotaping jury deliberations is a good one, Towermouse. Some jury deliberations can go on for days. And even if merely hours, it could be off-puttingly time-consuming for someone to trawl through them looking for evidence of flaws in their reasoning, when a faulty piece of logic might be stated at the beginning, but be challenged and put to rest right at the end. You&#39;d have to listen to the whole lot to find that out. What might work is if somebody who had a good reputation for being incisive were to sit in on jury deliberations, pointing out flaws in their reasoning. They wouldn&#39;t necessarily have to sit in on the whole court case; they could be given the basic facts of the case and be there during the summing up. This would hopefully prevent any partiality developing. The people could perhaps be retired volunteers who had done professional jobs before they retired; they wouldn&#39;t have to be paid. This would also mean that problems could be sorted out as they happened, not analysed afterwards when people were already suffering injustice because of unfair verdicts.

I don&#39;t see why videotaping discussions would ensure the participation of all the jurors and prevent domineering people from taking over. If anything, it would make some people too shy to speak their minds. If someone was actually there supervising, they could specifically ask the opinions of people who weren&#39;t talking much, which would encourage them to speak their minds.

There was an experiment on Tomorrow&#39;s World a few years ago that found that people were influenced by an alleged criminal&#39;s appearance, and good-looking ones were more likely to be acquitted. See:
http://www.uwe.ac.uk/fas/wavelength/wave18/singh.html
http://www.bps.org.uk/media-centre/press-r...blind&#036;.cfm

Paragraph 1:

I&#39;m not sure how that will be workable - barring people with a dependence on drugs or alcohol from service. Most of them aren&#39;t going to admit to such a thing and their GP&#39;s may be totally unaware of it.

Paragraph 2:

Again, I&#39;m not sure how your proposal "would prevent dominant personalities from coercing others into a particular verdict". They could just write down the verdict they&#39;d been coerced into. But that could perhaps be prevented if instead of starting by talking things through, each juror wrote their thoughts on the case down, and then an orderly discussion supervised by someone who would ensure all points were discussed fairly took place, where the merits of everyone&#39;s written opinions were discussed in turn. Then, after they&#39;d reached a verdict, maybe everyone could write down their thoughts again.

"This would also, hopefully, reduce the possible risk of a verdict being rushed, without full deliberation, to ensure an early release from service."

You don&#39;t explain how it would prevent it from being rushed; after all, people&#39;s reasoning wouldn&#39;t have to be that substantial.

Paragraph 3:

I can&#39;t see that the government would agree to pay the full cost of an employee&#39;s wages while they&#39;re on
jury service, since I can Imagine it would get very expensive.

Paragraph 5:

I don&#39;t think this should just apply to cases where false accusations are made. I think you need to specify what the "problems associated with such cases" might be. I think a tactic you ought to use is engaging their emotions a bit by informing them more of current problems in order to get their sympathy. And don&#39;t forget that problems that are just as bad or much worse can arise from juries acquitting the guilty as from juries convicting the innocent.

Kitty, you might have a good point about equual numbers of men and women on juries, but why do you think this should be?

[kitty]

U can never really know to the true character of any individual jury member
Regardless of their sex or apparent veneer.

The selection of sex male / female would help to balance some
Of the issues created in selection.

however no test is yet be developed

To allowed the acquisition of the perfect jury with a open and unbiased
veiw point...

take care
kitty

[maria]

hi val nice 2 c ya back how about an appeal where the person is not in prison but apparently iv been told if the case is strong enough it will be passed to go thru, but if its not and they don&#39;t think there&#39;s a case it gets thrown out, well they are passing shanes thru i don&#39;t know how long it takes or what happens next any idea? im just hoping and praying shane will clear his name and move on x

[val lavender]

There are a few things that can be done in that kind of situation. The first thing to do is to make sure that you have the right kind of solicitor on the job. The HAAP arae pretty good, but are always very busy and do take their time due to their workload.

Its also well worth talking to "Rights Fighter" via the PAAFA Forum as she is very experienced in these matters.

[val lavender]

Hi all

are we reaching the point where we can finalise our letter?. I feel that we are and that it might be time to produce a draft final version and get our resident experts to check the grammer and spelling for us.

Also, can I ask all forum members to use the" send a link" button to send this to everyone you know to incease bothe the input to the letter and the forum base generally.I did this today and it proved to be a very good excerise if only to make a few people realise that I am still alive and to clear out some of the dead wood

I feel that the list of addressees needs a lot of work, and that we need to agree how this letter is to be transmitted, what reply mediums we are going to propose and what we are going to do with our replies.

I feel that we should at on Snoops suggestion that we contact as many MP&#39;s as possible and given the grip of election fever we will either get few replies or lods as they are frantic for votes. I think we should try to contact the representatives from all parties in all regions and would like to know this honourable forums thoughts on this matter.

We seem to have lost a bit of the initial impetus and all contibutions to increase the activity on this matter would be good in my opinion



Regards

[diana_holbourn]

I don&#39;t personally think we&#39;re ready to have a final draft of the letter yet. I think some ideas have been missed, so I think it would be nice if everyone goes back to the beginning of the thread and reads it again. I&#39;m sure people suggested ideas initially that haven&#39;t been taken up and which could do with more discussion. I think that if everyone reads this thread again from the beginning, it will revitalise interest in the topic and spawn more discussion.

For instance, Angel suggested that jurors should take some kind of intelligence test to see if they&#39;re likely to make decent judgments. I&#39;d like some discussion of that idea to see if we can work out a manner in which this could happen. It sounds like a good idea. I thought about it a bit, but I couldn&#39;t think of a way to do it. Maybe I&#39;ll give it some more thought, and it would be nice if others could do that as well.

To remind you, Angel was suggesting that potential jjurors be given scenarios in which they have to make judgments as to the innocence or guilt of a person, and only if their logic is reasonable should they be accepted onto a jury.

And I know there were other ideas that could do with being discussed more. So it would be nice to hear more of people&#39;s thoughts on the matters.

[val lavender]

Yep, I tend to agree.

Why dont we all email this to all the people in our contacts lists who might be interested in the interests of fresh blood and new ideas.


Regards


Val

[maria]

hi all i think intelligence tests would have to be thought about very hard before they were introduced to prevent unfairness, i do think tho that people should be selected in a different way tho especialy if they are baduns that arent compas mentos for instance if they are people like junkies muggers ect i feel there back ground should be looked into i don&#39;t mean people that have done crimes so long as they were minor offences but some sort of selection process should be put into place

[littlemoo]

Maria, I&#39;m sorry, I&#39;m still not convinced. But I am willing to be swayed.
How do you suggest the selection is carried out and who would you exclude?
Also who gets to decide who can judge other people?

If anyone else can come up with an equally fair method of deciding which peers should judge each other then i&#39;d be interested to hear it and i&#39;m sure everyone else would too.

~Jo

[val lavender]

Hi Ladies

In terms of jury selection criteria I think that the floor is open for suggestions . I strongly feel that in abuse and rape cases there is a lot to be said for a gender neutral jury composed of equal numbers of male and female members.

Regards

[maria]

hi littlemoo in my way of thinking i would personaly not put on jury sevice people like junkies alcholic&#39;s muggers etc the 1st two lots would be a definate no no they can not think straight for starters and please don&#39;t have ago about the way i feel as i have worked in a lockup for sychiatric patients this is only from a personal and profesional point, also i will add i think the point is also being missed that not everyone is honest hard working and are none judgmental i do not think are system is a fair system in anyway shape or form, especialy when someone who is innocent be put into such a state of fear they admit to a crime that haven&#39;t commited, as said in a previous post i have done jury service and half of them were half wits that couldn&#39;t have give a dam either way i feel that no one that is in the dock should have there lives put in peoples hands like that, i also feel that people should give a valid written reason as to why they feel the accused is guilty/not guilty and these reason should be talked through with the judge, as for deciding who should or shouldn&#39;t be on the jury i feel that there own doctor should have to say whether the person selected should be of sound mind and a decent citizen, and not some low life scum bag like the accuser in my son&#39;s case, i hope this answers your questions x

[littlemoo]

Maria, I see what you are geting at and i&#39;m sorry that you&#39;ve had problems yourself. I don&#39;t have the experience that you have had with the jury system but I have been doing some reading around about it.

From what I have read (i will reference everything later but my notes are at home) There is more of a problem with ordinary working/middle class people getting out of jury service than with the "wrong types" being there. This is because they are either exempt or think it sounds boring or feel they are unable to have the time off work and therefore manage to wriggle out of it. This means that the jury ends up with those who are unemployed, retired, students (who don&#39;t have to go either) or people who don&#39;t really wnat to be there.

Mayb it would be better to try and educate people that jury service is not as boring and dull as it appears and is actually quite important (and if it is dull and boring, maybe the whole legal system requires a bit of alteration so it isn&#39;t) then less people would try and get out of it and there would be a better mix on the jury.

How is a doctor necessarily going to know whther someone is a "decent citizen" - they will not know about muggings and may well not know about alcoholism etc?

The idea of everyone having to write a piece on why they have come to their verdict is a very sensible idea. It will create a written record so no changes can be made and if each juror has to do it, it will mean that they have to pay attention.

~Jo

[Aunty Mabel]

I haven&#39;t said anything before as I have no experience with this kind of thing but something that littlemoo said sruck me. I was talking to my father in law the other day and he was saying how he got out of jury service. I can&#39;t remembr the excuse/reason but that&#39;s not important, it was his attitude, as if not doing it was somehow a good thing. This can&#39;t be right. hope you can all sort it out somehow.