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Graham Davies Legal Psychology

Graham Davies Legal Psychology. Week 7 Juries.

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Graham Davies Legal Psychology

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  1. Graham DaviesLegal Psychology Week 7 Juries

  2. Some Facts about English Juries• Involved in only around 3% of all criminal cases in England and Wales; 96% heard by magistrates (summary trials) • Around since 1220 to decide guilt of the accused • Called to court, allocated by lot in groups of 12 • Excluded: mentally ill, those with a serious criminal record • Now included: doctors, dentists, servicemen, MPs, judges and magistrates • Age range 18-70; about 480,000 people a year sit on juries

  3. Continuing controversy over jury effectiveness • “Juries are the lamp that shows freedom lives” (Lord Devlin) • “It is asking the ignorant to use the incomprehensible to decide the unknowable” (Judge Hillier Zobel after the O.J.Simpson trial in 1992). • A unique feature of the adversarial legal system, but currently under attack

  4. Concerns over Juries • Representatives of juries and grounds for exemption • Conscientiousness of juries (‘The jury from hell’, 1996) • Alternatives to juries

  5. Research Methods • Research on actual juries and jurors - currently banned in England and Canada, but not in the USA • ‘Mock Jury’ studies - problems of realism (Konecni & Ebbesen, 1992) • ‘Shadow’ juries (McCabe & Purves, 1974) - but do they think the same way?

  6. Issues around Representativeness• Jury size: participation versus spread of opinion (Saks & Marti, 1997) • Peremptory challenges (UK) and ‘voir dire’ and jury profiling(USA) • Juror attitudes and demographics (Devine et al. 2001) • Choice of Foreman (Strodtbeck & Hook, 1961)

  7. Issues Around Conscientiousness• Impact of early polling on final decision (McCabe & Purves, 1974) • Group polarisation (Myers & Kaplan, 1976) • Understanding of legal terms: Only 43% understand the rules (Matthews et al, 2004) • Recall of details of evidence (Hastie et al. 1983) • Content of deliberations (Clifford & Kapardis, 1978) • Pre-trial publicity (Padawar-Singer & Berlin, 1974)

  8. Remedial Measures to Assist Jurors• Taking of notes (Horowitz & Bordens, 2002) • Jury-friendly presentation of information (20% improvement: APU, 1986) • Judge’s directions (Ellwork et al., 1982) • Glossary of legal terms (55% improvement in comprehension: APU, 1986)

  9. Outcome Measures• Chicago Jury Project (Kalven & Zeisal, 1966) - 555 judges rated ‘right’ outcome in 3,576 Trials - Jury and Judge agreed 80% of the time • Birmingham Jury Study (Baldwin & McConville, 1979) - 5% judge said innocent; jury said guilty - 20% judge said guilty; jury said innocent

  10. What are the alternatives ?• Royal Commission on Criminal Justice (1993); Auld Committee (2001) examined alternatives • Judge sitting with lay assessors - recommended by Auld (2001) for complex fraud cases • Judge sitting with magistrates - recommended as alternative for ‘either way’ offences (Auld) - Magistrates will now try more severe cases with increased sentencing powers (up to a year’s imprisonment)

  11. Arguments for Change • Unrepresentative juries: not the ‘Verdict of your peers’ - Auld on deferred sitting and racial minorities Concerns over the ability of jurors to deal with complex or long-drawn-out cases - Judge only now permitted in trials involving multiple charges ‘Jury nobbling’ –intimidation and fear among jurors • Cost of jury trials (£13,500 per trial)-but do honest citizens need to ‘clear their names’?

  12. Arguments Against Change • Right of jury to obey a ‘higher law’ and acquit in the interests of ‘natural justice’ - anti-Trident protesters (2001) and genetically modified crops (1999) - right of prosecution to appeal against ‘perverse verdicts’ (Auld) In the absence of proper research, juries will continue to be the ‘black box of the legal system’

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