Yet another example of an enfeebled, impoverished  state of affairs of the UK. 

This country is completely broken and anyone with a shred of ambition (and the option to do so) should try their luck abroad and emigrate.

I've done jury service several times and I believe it's inefficient and vastly over romanticized. You wouldn't invent that system if we started again today. 

So the “solution” proposed by Leveson for a Criminal Justice System and Courts Service which is broken apparently beyond repair is to sacrifice Human Rights and the Right to Jury Trial, long-cherished and hard won on the altar of expediency and cost-cutting and incompetence resulting from 25 plus years of underinvestment and ignorance and lack of care by successive Governments.
Shame on Leveson and shame on anyone who suggests that this is an acceptable or in any way appropriate solution to the current appalling state of injustice and affairs.
The answer is simple and a solution could be resolved by a more informed and realistic and intelligent discussion and report by senior members of the Criminal Bar and Judges and Recorders active currently in the Criminal Courts.
The extremely poor management currently of Courts locally and the Courts Service and the MOJ is very largely to blame for the current crisis which has been building over the past 25 years. What was Sir Brian saying about this issue then?
The Government needs to face facts that the Taxpayer could continue pouring money into Doctors’ Salaries and into the NHS without requiring concomitant improvements or it could, for a relatively small amount fix the Courts Service after years and years of underinvestment and maintain a decent and fair and just Society and Legal System.

The issue here is what data is there to suggest there is a misuse of jury trials.  The present trial re the Manchester Airport incident is one which, although the offences are triable either way, would always BITD of modes of trial hearings proceeded in the CC.

I am not sure of how many simple shop thefts are go up to CC on election but there is a categorical difference between a frequent flier with 50 previous convictions (no right to elect) and a partner in a city firm with no previous (who should retain the right to elect trial at CC). See also other either way offences.
 

I suspect that they report (I have only read the reportage of it) is looking at solutions without understanding the problem.

Also, I think that it very likely that we lack the resources to deal with an increased throughput in the CJS.

Apologies for the serious comment, its ROF, I should know better.

Sir Brian (I note his tenure as IPC has been extended this week by three years - not the best look as unconnected) is way off base here.  Tone deaf to what was floated in Scotland with a hasty reverse ferret.  The solution is better funding.  The weight of the entirety of the State is brought against defendants. If it is in the public interest to prosecute, it must be in the public interest to apply the concomitant resources.  A jury is a lynchpin in vox populi. Reduction of the court estate is a choice. A failure to invest in IT infrastructure is a choice. Legal aid funding is a choice. A failure to see the rise in the need for trained and incentivised RASSO specialists in the digital age is either negligent or wilful.  The solution isn't jiggery pokery.  The solution is better funding.  Robert Bolt was right, Will Roper. Enough with deforestation.

All good with it, except the last bullet.

Misty eyed romanticism about the glory of the jury trial is misplaced. The idea of a jury has a noble origin, but British lawyers let that sentimentalism about the original concept get in the way of adapting the court system to be fit for purpose in the 21st Century (or even the 20th to be honest).

There's no need for jury trials for all but the most serious offences, having one isn't some 'Human Right' and taking juries away for most low-to-mid level offending trials isn't going to plunge us into fascist dystopia (cf. the entire rest of the western world). 

The idea that being judged a qualified judge is some kind of infringement of our basic rights is total bobbins. Appeals will remain available if judges/magistrates go rogue.

Speed up the system and make it more efficient. I don't give a toss that Barry the shoplifter doesn't get a day in the Crown Court making twelve random people watch CCTV of him stealing pork scratchings from Sainsbury's. Get a magistrate to do it in the morning, bang him up for six months, then get eight more little scrotes just like him processed on the same day. If we can manage that then just maybe we can avoid the lunacy of Nigel Farage PM in four years' time.

The only problem with these proposals is that we're going to need to build some more jails to put the backlog of scumbags in. Hopefully Keir has Bibby Stockholm in mothballs somewhere and we can put that to good use again.

@Anonymous 11 July 25 11:29:

Hear hear, well said. 

Unless Labour pulls off some serious "Wirtschaftswunder"-level changes to this country in the remaining time they've got before GE 2029, I fear that Prime Minister Farage is at this rate all but guaranteed. Run for the life rafts if you can folks.

Twelve men (cis) good and true, each descending or ascending from their ladder house to pass judgement on their fellow man remains the sole acceptable approach.

The jury system is sacrosanct. Judges can't be trusted on their own. Removing right to juries invalidates the courts.

Jury trials are silly. 12 prejudiced randos deciding someone's guilt is sick. One judge (for the law and facts) and two legally qualified assessors (of fact only) will work fine.

For serious offences you could have the Crown Court sitting with 3 judges.

Silliness aside, this whole mess is because of the massive underfunding of the CJS for decades.

In forty years of criminal practice (the first half as a solicitor and the second as a barrister) I have represented countless defendants in Magistrates and Crown Courts.

When I started out I used to painstakingly advise clients (not necessary with the frequent flyers) of the merits of trial in either court. After a while, and with more common sense born of experience, I just used to say "Do you want a quick trial or a fair trial?" and explain that you can have a quick trial before magistrates where, to all practical intents and purposes the burden of proof is on the defence, or a fair trial before a jury. 

(Actually, you can justify choice of trial by jury 'mathematically'. Three magistrates can convict if two wish to so the burden of proof on prosecution = 66%. A jury can convict unanimously = 100% or by a 10/2 majority = 80%). 

An important point to note is that any system of justice must not only be accepted as being fair by the public but also by its customers.  Countless times (after my less successful attempts at defence) clients have left the Magistrates Court after conviction and complained along the lines "They didn't listen" or "They only listened to the police". Often I can't say that I disagreed. But I have never once had a client convicted in the Crown Court who complained about the jury. 

Which brings me on to the question of whether juries are good at what they do.  I have rarely disagreed with jury verdicts. Maybe you think it could have gone the other way but I can't remember one which I thought they got completely wrong.

There's something in the wisdom of crowds. By and large people aren't stupid. Let me give an example. About five years ago I was in a complex fraud trial listed for several months with 13 defendants and a 43 count indictment which was in all sorts of permutations so count 1 involved, let's say, D's 1 4 6 and 11, count 2 D's 2 3 and 9 count 3 D's 1 7 10 and 13 and so on.

Jury selection was a nightmare as who can sit for that length of time? Sure enough we ended up with what looked like a mix of the retired and the great unwashed. 

They deliberated for nine days. With leaders and juniors there were about twenty counsel in the case. When the jury returned its verdicts, which were mixed, we all agreed that, although some could have gone the other way, they had basically got them right.

In the 1600's jury's often gave reasons for their verdicted, the great judge Lord Hale was not happy with this as it caused endless appeal arguments so he famously directed a jury that they should just return a verdict and give no reasons because "I am sure that your verdict will be right but your reasons may not be". 

So don't let's knock juries or try to delve into their deliberations. There's a reason why virtually all crminal lawyers are in favour of them - one way or another they usually get it right.

There is a problem, however, with too many cases ending up unnecessarily in the Crown Court. But the solution is not to create a mixed judge/mags court. You simply stop meritless cases going there.

You can do that in one of two ways. 

With 'either way' offences you allow the defendant to elect but let the prosecution appeal. That would go to a CC Judge. He would allow, say, nurse charged with shoplifting something, albeit of small value, to go to a jury because of the consequences to them of a conviction but not Johnny Scumbag who has done it dozens of times before and is just trying to put things off.

The other way is to rationalise which offences should be tried 'either way'. For example, threatening, abusive etc behaviour contrary to the 1986 Public Order Act is a summary offense UNLESS it is said to be racially or religiously aggravated. 

I remember turning up in a Crown Court one day to find a trial going on where the defendant was a very fat Jamaican gentleman who had been denied access to a nightclub which turned into an argument and, with the music booming out so it was next to impossible to hear properly what was said, the doorman had ended up on trial. 

During an adjournment I asked the court clerk what the issue was  and he said that the pros case was that the doorman had called the Jamaican a BLACK C**T and the defence was that he accepted that he had called him  a FAT C**T but not a BLACK C**T.  

I had not seen the Jamaican gentleman. I asked the clerk what he thought. He looked at me wearily and said "They're both right, he's a FAT, BLACK C**T".

The serious point is that this nonsense should never have been allowed near a Crown Court anf those of us in the business can think of plenty of other examples.

To those saying jury trials are sacrosanct, have you done jury service? It is an eye opener 

- 12 random people with some earnestly doing their best, some trying to get the whole thing wrapped as fast possible, some racists, some fruitloops

- Common thread: zero accountability. Because it is all so sacrosanct, there is no way to find out on what basis the 12 reached their decision. I've done it three times. "My mate is Muslim and did you know Muslims don't drink and therefore that guy can't have been drunk, he's Muslim". Just one example. 

- At least with a judge or mags, you can create a path to document and find out why they decided the way they did

- Nobody is remotely tracking the impact on the rest of society on taking all these people out of the workforce and their normal lives. Doing jury service involves a huge amount of sitting around in a waiting room and seeing if you get staffed on a case. As the whole premise is that the jurors are free labour there is nobody with an incentive on moving them through the system efficiently 

It's a literal black box (designed that way) and we hope that this is justice done because it's an Anglo Saxon tradition or something 

And yes of course more funding of the criminal justice system would help but, guess what, none of the political parties are advocating for this and society as a whole seems not to care. It's a shame. But we should still sort out jury trials and by "sort out" I mean "for goodness sake stop the madness" 

Correction to my comment of 1308 - the 'fat Jamaican gentleman' was the complainant, not the defendant as I stated!

I remember at Queen's Univ Belfast writing an essay on the Diplock court system in N Ireland.  The skeleton court system thought up by Lord Diplock, and in use during the Troubles.  Essentially, it was used intended primarily to be used against Irish Republicans.  Citing concerns about perceived juror intimidation, the Diplock system omitted various features of normal criminal trials.

As you know well, standard criminal trials contain features designed to ensure a fair trial:

A voir dire (aka pre trial), wherein a judge sifts through the evidence to weed out inadmissible evidence (hearsay evidence, lies, irrelevant evidence, etc).

The admissible evidence then goes to the trial proper, before 3 judges (the judge who presided over the voir dire is banned from taking part in the trial proper).

And you have a jury.

Diplock got rid of these features.  One judge, no jury; and, while there was a voir dire of sorts, it was presided over by the same judge who also presided over the trial proper.  Farcically, that judge
would, formally and publicly, verbally warn himself to ignore and forget the inadmissible evidence he had just heard.   I remember our constitutional law lecturer, a London bloke with long hair and
hippyish tendencies (v decent bloke), being especially scathing about this “warning yourself” carry-on.  He thought it was a travesty, and would throw up his hands and harrumph loudly, to the
visible unease of the more conservative law students whose ingrained tendency was to back all government actions to the hilt, without question.

This cut-down system essentially rubber-stamped the prejudices of the arresting officers.  The conviction rates were much higher than in normal criminal courts.

It was as said intended only to be used for “scheduled” (i.e., paramilitary) offences.

Not for so-called “ODCs” (NIO slang of the period – “ordinary decent criminals”, i.e., any arrested person whose actions, regardless of gravity, did not have a political aspect).

That did nto last long however.

The problem was though that cops are a bureaucracy.

And, like any other bureaucracy, faced with a long list of ordinary criminal trials, and doubtless facing the usual pressure from bosses to up their conviction rate, the temptation to divert a significant % of non-scheduled defendants into the Diplock system was too much, and the Diplock courts soon started to be used against pretty much anybody.

That is, a sharp departure from fair trial / rule of law norms which started out as something only to be used for a narrow class of defendants soon ended up being used willy-nilly, against pretty much
everybody.

Same thing will happen here.

Real justice is inefficient by design.  

Today, cutting back on juries.

Tomorrow, AI justice!

@13:08 - Here they come, the misty eyed old hacks who can't bear to see the traditional ways go.

Some absolute howlers in there:

""Do you want a quick trial or a fair trial?" and explain that ...

(Actually, you can justify choice of trial by jury 'mathematically'. Three magistrates can convict if two wish to so the burden of proof on prosecution = 66%. A jury can convict unanimously = 100% or by a 10/2 majority = 80%)."

In which what we really mean by 'fair trial' is that it's a 'mathematically harder to actually get convicted' trial. 

Jury trials aren't inherently fairer. They're just stacked towards acquittal. No wonder serial offenders love them.

"An important point to note is that any system of justice must not only be accepted as being fair by the public but also by its customers"

Absolute rubbish, the real 'customers' of the justice systems are the ones paying for it. The general law abiding public who work for a living. They'd be all in favour of a few more convictions.

Oh but poor wee Barry the shoplifter, spare his feelings a thought, he'll think it's terribly unfair if a magistrate sends him to jail cost-effectively instead of dragging twelve randos in to do it at great expense. Give a fuck. Stop nicking stuff and you can opt out of the whole process altogether.

Saying that criminals need to be happy with the justice system is like saying that termite colonies need to have favourable opinions about Rentokill.

We cite tradition/ history/ fairness to support status quo. Rest of society is more sanguine: they pay the bills and are the victims, defendants, witnesses, jurors so see the system up close too. They know fine well that juries are far from perfect and that judges alone are also far from perfect.  They speak the language of pragmatism and we speak principle; if you have a view then voice it in their language.  Sounds like Leveson has done that.

Tricky to argue that the views of 12 randoms are sacrosanct but the views of the c.50M randoms who vote don’t matter.  It’s for the ultimate bonkers jury, Parliament, to decide. What would help that jury, as in a trial, is some objective evidence to inform their deliberation, which means research (who wants that when you’re in the middle of confecting a binary argument). That’ll include looking at what other countries do - playing the exceptionalism card isn’t a winning strategy.

Retaining juries also retains jury nullification, which is essential.

Have to say if I was ever up in court and was only given the choice of either magistrates or a DDJ when I felt the trial needed a jury I would simply cease to recognise the court.

@[email protected] - excellent comment from someone who understands the system and the risks. I would only add that instead of rationalising each way offences we should probably rationalise what comes to court at all - I'd prefer almost all criminal trials to have jurors and most of the rest to be disposed of out of court, e.g. by cautions.

@13.19 - suggest you spend some time in a magistrates court if you worry about juries. Juries aren't perfect, but the alternative is far worse.

@[email protected] - it's definitely harder to get convicted in a jury trial, but that isn't because they're 'stacked towards aquittal', it because magistrates are prejudiced and corrupt. Magistrates trials are stacked towards conviction.

@[email protected] - the public mostly prefer juries and a lot of people don't trust judges. Remember, Defendants are mostly taxpayers.

I'd prefer 12 randoms than 1 or 3 non-randoms any day, the wider the gene pool the better.

We should look at what other countries do - we're miles behind in access to justice and way over-legislated and over-incarcerated.

"I would simply cease to recognise the court."

As is your inalienable right as a free man on the land.

Keep your eyes peeled for any admiralty flags while you're there. That's how they get you!

Be sure to tell them that you do not consent to their jurisdiction, that way they'll have no power over you.

I’ve done jury service 3 separate times. And it is terrifying that justice is in the hands of the general public. My final 3 day trial at the Old Bailey concerned a violent crime. When it came to deliberation it became clear that 1/4 of the jury didn’t understand the charges or what we were required to do and  2 hadn’t/ couldn’t follow the proceedings fully due to language issues.  There were a 3 of us (2 of the 3 being solicitors) who were able to try and explain things (as we recalled them) but it was a stark eye opener to how terrible and fallible the public jury system is. 

If justice in the hands of a judge isn’t appropriate could we instead look at professionally trained and appropriately paid professional jurors instead?

@[email protected] - I don't know about that, but without my recognition the court ceases to have authority over me. Telling the magistrates that may make the magistrates (even more) biased, in which case I'd have grounds to appeal to a court I do recognise. Without recognition the only 'power' that the courts have is physical force. I suspect many people will not recognise courts that they don't perceive as fair.

@[email protected] - of course the system has to be seen to be fair by the Defendants, otherwise it wouldn't work. Nobody would plead guilty.

@[email protected] - perhaps we could have paid jurors with some training  but the current system works reasonably well, even although it isn't perfect. Its still vastly superior to magistrates though - only 3 instead of 12, from a very narrow social background, and themselves often not understanding the case.