Mintball wrote:It didn't take long for one of the obvious candidates to find a race aspect, did it?
Given that most – if not all – of the internet responses to the Hilary Mantel business that I have seen seem to have been from white Brits (or Americans), there's hardly a dearth of wilful stupidity around without worrying about playing the 'ethnic' card.
How droll Ms Mintballs. Wilful stupidity indeed!
Perhaps you should take a moment or several to try and understand that it is not the pigmentation of one's skin , rather the social/ cultural characteristics as well as ancestry, which contribute to ones ethnicity.
That aside, the composition of this Jury was 8 women and 4 men, and at least some of them appeared to have only the faintest grasp of what the Judge was saying. Which raises the very valid questions posed earlier.....is the present British Jury system adequate for the 21st Century, or could it be improved, or was this simply an unfortunate case of 12 extremely thick people?.
And could one qualifying improvement not be, that a basic understanding of the English language be a pre requisite before serving on a Jury?
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rumpelstiltskin wrote:How droll Ms Mintballs. Wilful stupidity indeed!
Perhaps you should take a moment or several to try and understand that it is not the pigmentation of one's skin , rather the social/ cultural characteristics as well as ancestry, which contribute to ones ethnicity...
Oh, I am very well away of that. But it's a bit complex really for a short retort to someone trying to bring the issue of race/ethnicity into the equation.
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Dally wrote:I think these sort of juries are probably common but in this case it was newsworthy. I did a bit of jury service at the ' Bailey a few years ago and on one of the cases I was involved in some of the jurors were a joke. Rather like this case we had to go back two or three times to have simple questions answered because of a couple of stupid / over-anxious jurors. The judge had carefully explained the points in question and me an AN Other-Juror tried to explain things and what the judge had said but no we had to reconvene. Bearing in mind they stick another case in the Court while the jury deliberates it was really embarassing having to reconvene with all the participants being reassembled on such minor points. Judge started to get sarcastic. Some of the points made by jurors during deliberation were beyond belief - one anxious woman in particular argued that as the judge had been careful to say that to convict our minds had to be made up beyond reasonable doubt then as she hadn't been there to witness the alleged crime she nust have doubt! Another woman then agreed and things spiralled downhill. They could not seem to see that if they'd been there they would have been witnesses and not jurors and that therefore no one could ever be convicted! Then they were worried if they found the defendant guilty because it was a serious offence he might get locked up for a while! I pointed out that the judge was responsible for sentencing and he was somewhat more experienced than us.
When he was eventually found 'innocent' the judge was very sarcastic saying something like he was glad we had been so careful in reaching such a well thought out verdict (ie like me he thought the guy was guilty!). Defendant was "over the moon" and practically in shock and was thanking us. Alleged victim's family were rather abusive.
Translation: "At least 10 of the other 11 jurors disagreed with me, so they're all nuts, because I am always right."
Last edited by Ferocious Aardvark on stardate Jun 26, 3013 11:27 am, edited 48,562,867,458,300,023 times in total
Joined: Mar 05 2007 Posts: 13190 Location: Hedon (sometimes), sometimes Premier Inn's
Dally wrote:After the fiasco of the Vicky Pryce trial is trial by jury under threat? Are British people becoming too stupid to act as jurors? Do we have too many potential jurors who do not really understand English? Should would be jurors be givewn a basic English and IQ test before appointment? The Times feature is today (as I guess others will have) but I cannot link to there (subscription website).
Some (certainly on this jury) are too stupid to serve.
'when my life is over, the thing which will have given me greatest pride is that I was first to plunge into the sea, swimming freely underwater without any connection to the terrestrial world'
Joined: Mar 05 2007 Posts: 13190 Location: Hedon (sometimes), sometimes Premier Inn's
El Barbudo wrote:In the mid-1970's, I was called for jury service. One guy on the jury could tell, apparently, that the defendent was guilty from the way she stood in the box. Upon being reminded by other jurors that part of the oath we had sworn was "according to the evidence", his response was that, to him, that WAS evidence and, anyway, the police wouldn't have brought it to court if she wasn't guilty.
In the end we reached a majority "Not Guilty" verdict despite him ... but I can imagine that we could easily have reached the stage where we would have needed to send a note to the judge, if only to to get him to make clear to that one guy that it was not "evidence".
It doesn't take an entire jury to get a jury dismissed.
I was once told by a women I did some work for, who was a magistrate that 'in her experience' the police never lie
Wonder how many innocent people she sent down
'when my life is over, the thing which will have given me greatest pride is that I was first to plunge into the sea, swimming freely underwater without any connection to the terrestrial world'
Joined: Mar 05 2007 Posts: 13190 Location: Hedon (sometimes), sometimes Premier Inn's
Mintball wrote:I've no doubt about the sincerity of the jurors, but how could anyone ask: 'Can a juror come to a verdict based on a reason that was not presented in court and has no facts or evidence to support it either from the prosecution or defence?'
Reminds me a bit of the juror on the Wack Jacko trial who interviewed after the trial and said (paraphrased) 'I though he had done it, but I didn't like that prosecutor'
'when my life is over, the thing which will have given me greatest pride is that I was first to plunge into the sea, swimming freely underwater without any connection to the terrestrial world'
Joined: May 10 2002 Posts: 47951 Location: Die Metropole
rover49 wrote:Some (certainly on this jury) are too stupid to serve.
Entirely coincidentally, but the other day tb and I were discussing the whole issue of jury trials and saying that it's easy to forget that many countries that we regard as entirely civilised and fair etc don't have jury trials. Indeed, at appeals and in the upper courts, we don't either.
The jury system came out of Magna Carta, although at that stage it was only intended that barons judge other barons – nothing to do with us peasants.
But it doesn't mean that you have to have a jury system to have a fair and scrupulous judicial system. I doubt we'd suggest that, say, the likes of Denmark, Sweden and Germany had inherently unfair judicial systems, and none of these have jury trials in any situations. Some countries have jury trials in some situations but not all.
Perhaps we don't need to be as wedded to the jury system as we are (for fairly understandable reasons of tradition).
"You are working for Satan." Kirkstaller
"Dare to know!" Immanuel Kant
"Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive" Elbert Hubbard
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." Oscar Wilde
Joined: Dec 22 2001 Posts: 14395 Location: Chester
Dally wrote:When he was eventually found 'innocent' the judge was very sarcastic saying something like he was glad we had been so careful in reaching such a well thought out verdict (ie like me he thought the guy was guilty!). Defendant was "over the moon" and practically in shock and was thanking us. Alleged victim's family were rather abusive.
When I did my jury service one of the clerks of the court mentioned after the event we had made the right decision. It was the car theft case which took a long time due to one juror struggling (coincidentally) enough with the concept of reasonable doubt. It was as if she wanted CCTV footage of him driving the car away and simply could not accept that although we had no such evidence the evidence we did have meant it was unreasonable to conclude he didn't steal the car. However I am sure she felt she was in the right to stand her corner and surely that is part of the process. It would be no good if juries retired and came back five minutes later with a verdict.
The thing is though without being party to the discussions the Pryce jury had or party to the evidence they were presented with, it is not possible to slag them off for not even managing to reach a majority verdict or IMO even for the questions asked.
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Joined: Feb 17 2002 Posts: 28357 Location: MACS0647-JD
rumpelstiltskin wrote:...
That aside, the composition of this Jury was 8 women and 4 men, and at least some of them appeared to have only the faintest grasp of what the Judge was saying. Which raises the very valid questions posed earlier.....is the present British Jury system adequate for the 21st Century,
The point I made earlier, given the sheer number of trials and ONE case of this happening (the trial judge said it was unique in his 30 years experience), it does seem OTT, to say the least, to extrapolate questions as to the adequacy of the entire jury system.
rumpelstiltskin wrote:...And could one qualifying improvement not be, that a basic understanding of the English language be a pre requisite before serving on a Jury?
It would not be an improvement, as it already exists. But don't let the facts get in your way.
Last edited by Ferocious Aardvark on stardate Jun 26, 3013 11:27 am, edited 48,562,867,458,300,023 times in total
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