Jury Competence Essay

Introduction

This essay seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis on the topic of jury competence. The jury system is an old tradition, predating England’s Magna Carta. The ideal of providing checks and balances in the legal system and allowing fair trial by peers is virtuous. Granting juries the power and discretion we do, directly expresses our faith in an institution that is central to our vision of democratic governance, and our confidence that jury verdicts can be fair, unbiased, and accurate. The vital role in which the jury plays in our legal system cannot be questioned, whether or not our confidence in the jury system is supported, is another question.

Research

There exists a substantiative body of research on the topic of jury

competence, including the ‘Chicago Jury Project’, and the study ‘Are Juries Fair?’, both of which are considered to be our best evidence on the topic of jury competence. The findings from the Chicago Jury Project indicated that judge and jury agreed 78 percent of the time, and in the cases of disagreement the jury favoured the defendant about as often as the plaintiff.

However, the age of the findings limit their applicability to controversies about the contemporary jury.

The intervening decades have produced substantial changes that could, and probably do, have a bearing on the ability of juries to carry out the tasks assigned to them. The jury has come a long way since the Chicago Jury Project found that upper-class men dominate deliberations. Jury panels are now more representative of the population, were minorities and women have been brought into the jury room. These groups now appear to participate in jury deliberations and influence jury verdicts as much as their white, male counterparts. Changes have occurred in the nature of cases that are tried to juries, their complexity, and their length. Substantive laws have been altered, such as shifts from contributory to comparative negligence and the verdict of guilty but mentally ill. The kinds of evidence that juries hear have also evolved: Advances in technologies have increased the use of scientific evidence; and lawyers have become increasingly intricate in developing multiple theories of causality. The makeup of the jury, the evidence, and the context in which it operates today is very different from when the Project’s data were

collected.
While it is true that the composition of the jury pool has evolved over time to reflect the more diverse nature of our population, the circumstances in which the jury is the mechanism of fact-finder have not changed.
Recent criticism

In more recent times, the jury has come under significant criticism. Many contemporary critics would endorse Judge Jerome Frank's assertion that the jury ‘’applies law it doesn't understand to facts it can't get straight’’.

One primary concern is that juries have become inefficient and serve as a drain on limited judicial resources.

Concerns have also been raised about the quality and integrity of the outcomes reached by juries. Many critics believe that jurors are frequently biased, incompetent, and apathetic, and as such, render verdicts unjust. Jurors frequently misunderstand instructions given by the judge on legal issues, fail to recall critical evidence, and suffer from boredom and apathy during trials. Particularly in complex trials, jurors have trouble comprehending the evidence and that as a consequence; jurors reach verdicts that are

arbitrary.

There are also concerns relating to the misuse of social media by jurors. As social media has become a vital part in how we live our lives, it seems to have infected the jury system also. The Centre for Law, Governance and Public Policy, at Bond University warns trials around the world are being corrupted, delayed or aborted by jurors who:
• Conduct polls on their Facebook friends as to whether a defendant is guilty;
• Make comments about court staff through social media;
• Research the case they are hearing through Google; and
• Exchange Facebook messages with the accused