Why do we have juries

Under current public health restrictions , court business has been reduced. You can access the latest announcements on court sittings on the Courts Service website. If you have a question about this topic you can contact the Citizens Information Phone Service on 07 Monday to Friday, 9am to 8pm. You can also contact your local Citizens Information Centre or Request a call back from an information officer. Information The jury fulfils a very important function in the legal system.

The verdict At the conclusion of the trial, the jurors are given an issue paper, which states the issues that the jury must consider in reaching its verdict. Rules Jurors must: Decide the facts of the case only. Remain impartial and independent. Remain uninfluenced by any person. It is an offence for any person who is not a member of the jury to attempt to influence a juror in any way. Keep statements made in the jury room confidential. Jurors should not discuss the case with any person other than members of the jury.

Sometimes, accused persons have firm views about whether they want a judge or a jury to hear their case, often the result of past experiences with the court system.

An accused who has been in trouble in the past and feels she has not been treated fairly, when in front of a judge alone, will often insist on a jury trial, believing she will get a better hearing in front of 12 ordinary people. Sometimes, simply as a matter of principle, accused persons want representatives of their community to pronounce judgment opposed to a judge. Sometimes the opposite occurs, where an accused declines his right to a jury because he does not want local people to know the details of what he is alleged to have done.

A defence lawyer who is advising an accused may have different considerations. Cases which are mainly about the law are probably better suited to the assessment of a judge. In a jury trial, the judge explains to the jury what the applicable law is; the jury then has to apply that law to the evidence and determine the verdict.

A criminal trial must always begin with 12 jurors, and the law allows for up to two to be excused as the trial proceeds. Cases where the main question is what precisely took place between the people involved are sometimes better suited for a jury, but not always. Even for a judge, finding a coherent, logical way through a tangled web of evidence can be a challenge. Juries are always told they must not allow sympathy to play a role in their decision-making, but in the real world sympathy is almost always a factor taken into account in choosing whether to have a jury trial.

An accused who will likely be seen with sympathy and compassion by other persons may more likely want a jury. Sympathy and compassion can also weigh against an accused, in which case they will more likely not want a jury trial.

Plainly that must be the first requirement of jury trial, whatever else may be its value. Think back to all the major miscarriages of justice of the last 50 years and you'd be hard pressed to find one where the fault lay with the jury.

Overwhelmingly the miscarriages have been due to failures in other parts of the system — by police, by experts, by witnesses or by lawyers. But that juries work well is not the only reason to support trial by jury. Equally important is the fact that juries are one of the most democratic aspects of the constitution; they are democracy in action every day of the week, not just once every four or five years.

There is no other part of the constitution that is so open to the public, where ordinary people participate in decisions of such immediate importance and wield real power. There are jurors settling the fates of their fellow citizens in crown courts up and down the country every day of the week, determining by their verdicts whether or not defendants are guilty of the most serious crimes of violence and dishonesty such as murder, rape, robbery and fraud.

Juries bring with them the freshness and insights of those who are new to the system and have not become case-hardened or cynical. Today juries are formally entrenched in the Australian Constitution for offences at a federal level. Juries are used in the most serious of criminal offences, that is, for trials on indictment. They remain the default form of trial for serious crimes under state law as well. While juries can hear either civil or criminal cases, Australian civil cases rarely involve jury trials.

Criminal jury trials are diminishing. One reason for this is because there are strong incentives for the accused to forgo their right to a trial by jury due to sentencing discounting for an accused pleading guilty well before trial. CW: How many jurors are there, and do they all have to agree? JH: Juries usually start with 12 people. All Australians eligible to vote can be summoned as jurors subject to various exclusions and exemptions.

Jury verdicts must be unanimous, though depending on the circumstances, a jury in NSW considering non-Federal offences can reach a verdict by a majority of 11 or even 10 jurors.