Perverting the Course of Justice, Again. Can We Trust Juries?

Yesterday a fresh trial began in the case of Vicky Pryce, the former wife of Chris Huhne alleged to have accepted speeding points on his behalf. For the original article on the trial and the relevant law, see here:

http://lawscapeuk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/perverting-course-of-justice-and.html

Ms Pryce’s original trial was abandoned last Wednesday after the jury was discharged following their inability to reach a verdict. The judge, Mr Justice Sweeney, had received a note from the jury saying it was ‘highly unlikely’ they would be able to reach a verdict. The jury had earlier been directed that the judge would accept a majority verdict made by at least 10 of out of the 12 jurors.

Considerable concern was expressed at some of the questions asked by the jury. The jury asked a list of 10 questions, which included a request for further definition of what is meant by being convinced ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ of the defendant’s guilt and whether they could make their decision based on reasons not presented in court or supported by the evidence. The judge said that some of these questions showed a ‘fundamental deficit in understanding’ by the jury of its role and that he had never come across anything like it in 30 years of criminal trials.

Now it is not rare or exceptional for juries to ask questions. But it is rare for a judge to be critical of a jury. And it is completely exceptional for a jury to so fatally misunderstand its role. After all there can be few of us that think we can reach a verdict in a criminal trial based on reasons not presented in evidence. If we could what would be the point of having evidence?

In the wake of this story there has been much discussion about whether we can still trust the jury system. Some have suggested that jurors should meet have to meet a minimum educational standard. So should we be concerned about the jury system? Does it need to be modified extensively?

For me at least the answer is a resounding ‘no’. This was an extremely rare case. Juries often deal with considerably more complex cases without difficulty. No injustice was caused in this case; as soon as the issue with the jury was clear the trial was abandoned and a retrial ordered. Moreover if the jury had found Ms Pryce guilty and there was concern about the conviction then there could have been an appeal to the Court of Appeal, which would have overturned the conviction if it was satisfied that it was ‘unsafe’. The system provides protection from miscarriages of justice. Furthermore, if we did decide, for example, to impose an educational requirement on jurors what requirement would we choose? And who would we entrust to decide that requirement? Perhaps the only thing we need to be sure of is that jurors must have a good command of English because of the complexity of the language sometimes used in trials. Maybe, with our increasingly diverse society, this will have to be seriously considered in the future.

The jury system has worked for hundreds of years and we are rightly proud of our right to be tried fairly by a jury. I am sure we will be proud of it for many years to come. In the meantime, we can await the new jury’s verdict in Ms Pryce’s case.

Do you think we should retain the jury system? Does it need modifying?