Jackson Jury's a Joke
Michael Jackson gets off. (Alleged) Gangland (Alleged) thug Mick Gatto gets off. Schapelle Corby gets 20 years. Completely unrelated cases in different jurisdictions, but all three undermine any lingering faith I had in the justice system.
I've long held the view that the jury system is a flawed system and should be abolished, and seeing the juries acquit Jackson and Gatto is a good demonstration of why. To get selected for a jury, you must demonstate that you have no preconcieved notions of the case, little knowledge of the people involved, no strong views, and last had an original thought some time during the Nixon administration. Then, after demonstrating that they are the poster-children of ordinariness, jurors are expected to critically evaluate vast quantities of technical and legal evidence, balance competing claims on the truth, and reach a reasoned and careful judgement. Why do we persist with such an absurd system.
If we trust judges to oversee the trial and apply the rules of law, then surely we should trust them to reach a verdict. By definition, judges are experts in the evaluation of evidence, logical reasoning and legal principles. To set aside this expertise, and instead rely on lay-opinion, is absurd.
I've long held the view that the jury system is a flawed system and should be abolished, and seeing the juries acquit Jackson and Gatto is a good demonstration of why. To get selected for a jury, you must demonstate that you have no preconcieved notions of the case, little knowledge of the people involved, no strong views, and last had an original thought some time during the Nixon administration. Then, after demonstrating that they are the poster-children of ordinariness, jurors are expected to critically evaluate vast quantities of technical and legal evidence, balance competing claims on the truth, and reach a reasoned and careful judgement. Why do we persist with such an absurd system.
If we trust judges to oversee the trial and apply the rules of law, then surely we should trust them to reach a verdict. By definition, judges are experts in the evaluation of evidence, logical reasoning and legal principles. To set aside this expertise, and instead rely on lay-opinion, is absurd.
Comments
Seriously, your comments are a little disturbing. Our criminal justice system's built on the premise that 'it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent person suffer' which is a highly sensible idea given the vast assymetries of harm done in each of those cases (maybe I'll explore this notion more in a future post).
Juries are a good way of reaching that aim and secondary aims such as community representation and allowing mercy verdicts. The 'Diplock' courts in Ireland, where juries were abolished for terrorism cases, led to huge numbers of confirmed miscarriages of justice. Judges became case hardened, familiar with the repeat-player prosecutors and disdainful of the defence barristers. They were quick to convict on the uncorroberated testimony of "supergrasses" and on the basis of coerced police station confessions. Not all of the miscarriages of justice during that dark time in Ireland can be attributed to the abolishing of juries, but it had a serious effect.
I can see the argument more strongly in complex cases where there are actually complicated questions of scientific opinion. But in straight up cases of evaluating the credibility of witnesses and the accused (like Jacko/Gatto) it's a non-argument.
And deciding on people's guilt or innocence based on media is, obviously, an exercise fraught with danger. A Jacko jury member had a good response to the queen of armchair judges yesterday.
principle, it includes e.g. factors of time, cost and social policy.
empirically, common law systems (Australia included) don't deliver substantially better justice outcomes than non-CL ones, in fact they suffer from major systemic problems that non-CL countries don't, though these derive more from the adversarial system in general rather han juries per se.
personally I don't see why in principle a panel of judges should not be a legitimate fact-finding body. obviously you can't keep rotating judges between different areas of law to avoid 'hardening' them as they need to develop some expertise in what they're doing, but
you can put in certain safeguards to ensure you don't end up with 'Diplock' courts (I'd suggest the Northern Ireland situation is quite context-specific and shouldn't be used as a general model).
Many perfectly good criminal justice systems do not leave verdicts in the hands of juries, but it's what we're used to in Australia. Indonesian, Israeli, French, Swedish (etc) jurists are often alarmed by what they perceive as the arbitrariness and lack of accountability and effective review inherent within the UK/US/Australian jury system.
Cheers,
John.
I'm well aware of issues of comparative legal systems and broader conceptions of justice and you'll notice I was quite a strong defender of the Indonesian courts and system here and elsewhere. But simply transplanting inquisitorial-type features on our adversarial system, especially based on impressions gained from celebrity trials as I felt Ari was doing, is not a good idea. I think the Irish experience with Diplock courts is a good example of what happens when you fiddle with fundamental parts of our adversarial criminal justice system, such as juries, without taking a look at the system as a whole.
A discussion of more widespread reform might be worthwhile having, but I don't think recent celebrity trials gives any more or less weight to this.