Jury Trial Essay

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Introduction
From the period of the Anglo-Saxon up to the Norman Conquest back in 1066 and till today, the English common law had significantly innovated and evolved its jury system for a better English Legal System. Early jurors initially acted as witnesses of sources of information but they gradually became adjudicators and further ruminating evidence where a juror should know the utmost minimum about the facts of the case before a trial, in which is the stand today. Jury service is a legally recognised civic duty for all the people in the UK and many other countries as well, irrespective of their class, status, profession, race or religion. However, due to the UK’s unwritten constitution, the right to trial by jury is not enshrined in an …show more content…

Jury trial can be deemed as a fundamental aspect of democracy which is the keystone of the English Legal System as described by Lord Devlin, “it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives”. Post-selection for a trial, a juror has to work for the duration of the ongoing trial, which could sometimes last up to a few …show more content…

As the random selection of jurors is not generally done based on their gender or ethnic origin, there can be seen to be bias as the jury is not well-represented.

Decisions made under external pressure, undue influence of judicial pressure in R v McKenna where the trial judge threatened to lock the jury members up for an entire night if they did not reach a verdict within 10 minutes, in which the jury returned the verdict of guilty against the defendant within 6 minutes but the convictions were fortunately quashed on appeal due to material irregularity during the trial.
Private or secret communication between the jury and judge – affect judicial impartiality and openness and trust in jury and further the judiciary.
Steps: Judges are responsible for matters of the law while the jury is responsible for matters of the facts of the case which must notably be guided and directed by the presiding judge of the case which allows the judge to intervene when the jury cannot properly convict the defendant due to the prosecution’s very weak evidence. However, this could be seen as the judiciary lacking faith and trust in the jury to reach a satisfactory verdict. Therefore, judges should intervene during the course of the evidence to comment on the facts to guide the jury towards applying the relevant law on their

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