Jury Service

I had a call to do jury service a few weeks ago. Never having done it before I looked forward to particpating in the checks and balances which should make our legal system work well and in times past certainly gave it an international reputation for fairness which was second to none.

To be fair, I only sat on one case as a juror so this may not be representative, but the Crown's case seemed to me to be so shambolic as to be laughable. Police evidence was so inconsistent that you had to wonder what the problem was. Fingerprint evidence was not undertaken because it would have been 'too expensive'. On a split decision the defendant was found guilty and it seemed to me this was not based on the evidence but more on the supposition that he looked like a 'toe-rag' and was therefore probably guilty. A view I shared, but I was one of the dissidents who voted 'not guilty' purely because I felt the Crown had not proved its case 'beyond all reasonable doubt'.

Was this a miscarriage of justice? Given the miscreant's history of convictions provided after the verdict makes it seem unlikely, but I can assure you I was not impressed at all. The evidence that was produced was so sketchy that I think you had to find the defendant not guilty because the burden of proof was not there. Any one of us might well have been found guilty by that jury on the evidence provided and my view is that in most cases that would be a miscarriage of justice.

Should we change the system? No. But we should expect the police and the Crown to make an effort to meet the requirements of 'beyond all reasonable doubt'.