Letter regarding Jury Service system changes

[Stacey]

I suppose I should think about how I would like a jury to be should my case get to court...My biggest anxiety regarding this is the knowledge that everyone in the whole world has various predetermined views and prejudices, whether they know it or not. Hence, with random jury selection, it can't be determined what kind of set of views you are going to get. For example, before this happened to me, there were a hell of a lot of things I did not know about rape and trauma that I know now. Had I been on a jury beforehand, I may have made some very different decisions perhaps? Obviously I'm not sure if there's anything to be done about this, but it is a worry all the same. A friend suggested a jury should be educated as these kind of things beforehand, but I'm not sure that's right, because not only can every case be so so different, it could also be seen as a way of manipulating the thoughts of the jury beforehand, and they're meant to be impartial. What I'm trying to say is that I would like a jury to REALLY LISTEN to what is being presented, and not jump to any conclusions and make assumptions about things.
Not sure how helpful this is to the letter though...to get back on topic a bit, I am very in favour of jury members having to articulate their thought process in some way in order to ensure that it is given serious thought and discussion. After all, it's people's lives we're dealing with.
Personally I think it is incredibly articulate and well expressed. How near are we to completion?

[littlemoo]

Stacey,
Very well put. I'm not sure how we could go about making the jury any more impartial but I'm glad you've written what you have. It is a new and interesting way of looking at things. :-)

How near are we to completion
Well Val suggested we start to wrap up, Diana disagreed and I think we've sort of decide to try and involve as many people as possible and to get as big a distribution list as possible. Presumbly a final version will be written after that and there may be some polls if people still disagree about any of the points.

Takling about distribution, in my research I found a consultation paper that the governmnet had produced about the problems of jury selction. http://www.dca.gov.uk/consult/juries/summoning.htm The article itself is interesting reading as it sums up what the government felt was wrong with the selection process jury service. (Interestingly they were trying to include more people not exclude them.)
Also at the bottom is a whole long list of people related to the law profession and also related government depatments and other interested groups. We could send our letter to some of those.

Also interesting reading (although not containing any addresses for distribution) is an article all about the british criminal courts and specifically the jury system. http://www.criminal-courts-review.org.uk/ccr-05.htm#p7

There is also a Crown Prosecution Service white paper summary which really unhelpfully doesn't seem to have a date but I think it might be the policy document produced from the consultation. Most of the text is not relevant but there are some email addresses of organsiations on the justice system which we may want to send the letter to. The Crown Prosecution Service - Justice for All

Also of interest was the personal account of someone who was on a jury (from 2000) Why You should do Jury Service

I have also found (but not actually read yet) a paper entitled: What can the English Legal System Learn From Jury Research Published up to 2001. It looks relevant if anyone fancies reading it (or bits of it) and summarising it - I'll try and have a look but I'm really busy at the mo. http://www.kingston.ac.uk/~la_s025/elsres01.pdf (it's a pdf so you need acrobat reader)

Anyway, that's my references and thoughts for the evening. I'm off to get some food.
Yum.

[Stacey]

Originally posted by littlemoo@19th April 2005 - 07:56 PM
Stacey,
Very well put. I'm not sure how we could go about making the jury any more impartial but I'm glad you've written what you have. It is a new and interesting way of looking at things. :-)

Quoted post

Having thought about it, let's see if I can explain things a bit more clearly.... I shall be specific. For example, after I was raped, my rapist continued to live i nmy house. Obviously I was in trauma, shock , I was frightened. I acted normally around him, even hugging him at one point, in order to cope with that. It was denial, a defence mechanism, call it what you will. Now I've learnt that the way I behaved is a classic response to trauma, you shut down and try to cope as though nothing has happened, since it is easier in the short term. I didn't know that initially, and I thought because I had behaved in this way, no one would believe he had raped me. So, I may get a jury made up of people who think like that. Or i may get a jury made up of people who are aware of the effects of traumatic incidents like this, and understand my response. It could be a mixture. Because of the nature of random selection, there's no way of knowing how I will be perceived. I guess it is this uncertainty that worries me a little. I wonder if anyone has ever been on a jury and later wished they had made a different decision given what they later learn?

[Ashley]

Hello Everyone,

Can I just briefly explain my absence which is also included in another topic.

In recent months my life has moved on in so many postive ways that I have been rather selfish in not dropping into the site. Diana has emailed me asking that I look at one or two issues and maybe comment. Val's letter, and the campaign, I applaud. Can I just say though:

In my view, there is a danger here of over egging the pudding. Jurors who abuse drugs, alcohol, suffer from various disorders, hardly relevant in my opinion. Where do you draw the line? Blood tests before enpanelment ?Impossible to police.

Jurors made up of experts?. It is the duty of the defence to contradict expert evidence, probably with defence expert evidence, not for experts on a jury to professionally evaluate the evidence they hear. Who would be the more qualified, the expert giving the evidence of the expert evaluating it? This kind of jury is really limited to very complex fraud trials. Remember also that 9/10 complaints of sexual abuse are historic. There is no evidence, medical or otherwise, on which an expert is able to comment, other than possibly psychiatric disorders that may render a sufferer less reliable as a witness than the norm.

Just trying to distill and crystallize the entire issue, I believe the overiding concern is the ability of a jury to diligently do their duty and in sex cases arrive with a pre-conceived opinion of guilt. In this respect each juror, individually, should have to validate the reasons for arriving at the decision they did. Only then can we see if they have :
1. applied the law as the judge has advised them on.
2. Fully interpreted the facts.

That is what I would like to see and in that sense I wholly support and applaud this campaign.

Can I finally apologise if I have commented on already dismissed points, I have read just enough to give me the gist.

Promise to drop in from time to time.
Ashley

[val lavender]

Hi All

as it seems to have gone quiet for a while I guess that everyone has had their say and that we now ought to produce a final version and sen it off to as many people as possible.

I will get this done over the weekend and post it for approval


Regards

[diana_holbourn]

I should have had a look at this thread again earlier really, sorry; but I've just read much of it again.

I heard an interesting snippet of information recently. It quite possibly isn't relevant, but interesting nevertheless. I heard that research has found that if each jury member is asked what they think a verdict is before they begin discussing it, afterwards, they're far less likely to change their minds than they are if they're not asked, as if they would be embarrassed by having to admit they got it wrong and had to change their minds. It's a bit bad that people should apparently put their own pride before consideration of other people's lives.

It may be that Snoopy suggested that juries should have to watch a video about how jurors can be swayed to make wrong decisions by things they shouldn't be, partly because of considerations like the ones raised in part of my (archived) campaign document. I warn that the following quote might upset people, so perhaps anyone feeling fragile ought not to read it. It said:

... A common tactic of barristers is to try to make the jury believe that the victim may not in fact have consented to sex, but she brought the attack on herself because of the foolish way she behaved, and so the defendant should not be held responsible. It has been found to be common for barristers to deflect attention away from their client's behaviour during an attack! (I'm not sure how much things have changed recently.)

The article by Jennifer Tempkin referred to earlier says that what the complainant is wearing in court is often used to undermine her character. It quoted a barrister defending a man in a case where the victim had jumped out of a first floor window to escape him as saying, 'The girl was basically just cross-examined because she had a mini-skirt with a zip in it'.

Research (from America) carried out by Goodchilds and Zellman, (1984) found in a study of high school boys that eight out of ten thought it was allright for a man to hold down a date and force her to have sex in a number of circumstances, including if he had spent a lot of money on her. (I think many have been found to grow out of attitudes like that, though.)

A barrister interviewed by Jennifer Tempkin pointed out another jury prejudice, saying, "If you live in a squat or are a single mother it does have an impact on juries. I think that they think that you are more likely to have got what you deserved."
Another barrister said that some men think that rape doesn't even exist, so they'll acquit in any case.

A study conducted by Muehlenhard, Friedman and Thomas (1985) (again in America, I think, as the other research cited probably was) found that people thought that unwanted sex was more justified when the woman had asked the man out and when he had paid all dating expenses.

A study carried out by Jenkins and Dambrot (1987) found that females, when given a date rape scenario, more often considered that the sexual intercourse actually had been a rape when it happened during a date that the man had not paid for than when it happened during a date where he had spent money on the woman. ...

Lubomski et al. (1988) found that males were significantly more likely than females to judge rape victims as having encouraged the attack, as careless,
and as having failed to prevent the attack when they could have done so.

In a study of the attitudes of mock jurors to rape victims, Deitz et al. (1984) Found that males as compared to females more often thought the victim had done something to encourage the rape, thought that the psychological effects of it would be less severe, considered rape to be a less serious crime, and
were less sure about the guilt of the defendant. ...

Maybe even just a short talk at the beginning of a court case informing juries of the pitfalls they could fall into when judging a case, and of the serious impact that crimes, and false accusations, can have on people's lives, then some of them would take their responsibility more seriously, and make more considered judgments rather than just going with the flow because they wanted it over with, and that may be a cheaper way of ensuring they are prepared to give up their time than giving them the full amount of pay they would have received at work during their service to compensate them, which the government might think so expensive as to be an unacceptable idea. Maybe they could be persuaded to raise the amount they give jurors a bit though.

It would be nice if we gave politicians the opportunity of discussing it on the forum by giving them an address they could put replies on or an email address to which they could send comments which could then be easily put on the forum. I don't hold out too much hope of them getting too involved, but you never know.

It may be that rather than suggesting any type of aptitude tests to select for the suitability of jurors, for the time being, they should be just asked to fill in accountability sheets explaining how they reached their decisions, and maybe you could suggest that some research could be done in a year or two's time, with the sheets being compiled and examined, in order to highlight what the shortfalls in the current jury system are, and maybe changes could be decided on from there.

I think it would be a good idea if the person who the accountability sheets were given to each time looked through them and highlighted any areas where logic had been poor, and any considerations that had been ignored, keeping criticisms anonymous, so they could ask the jury to reconsider, if they thought there was any danger of a miscarriage of justice. Maybe volunteers, like retired magistrates, could be asked to do that.

I like your idea of getting jury members to fill in forms declaring any relationship with the accuser or accused, with the threat of punishment if they don't. Maybe the punishment itself ought to be decided on by the politicians.

[diana_holbourn]

I've cleaned up this thread a bit. It stalled, and then got a bit irritable, admittedly partly my fault, and stalled some more and then perhaps got forgotten. But I've pruned it a bit now, in case anyone wants to try to give it another go, either now or at some point in the future.