Jury trials scrapped for thousands of offences

_{Not everyone is happy with the reforms}

David Lammy, the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, has announced that the government will scrap jury trials for thousands of cases.

Lammy said that "bold" reforms are needed to "turn the tide on the rising backlog" of almost 80,000 cases and "tackle the emergency in our courts", following a review of the criminal justice system by Sir Brian Leveson, earlier this year.

In an announcement in parliament, Lammy stated that cases with a sentencing range of up to three years will be tried by a judge-only in new "swift courts", instead of a jury.

The Justice Secretary also said that defendants will no longer be able to "game the system" and choose between a jury or magistrate for “either-way” offences (such as burglary, ABH or possession of drugs), as those matters will be heard either by a judge or a magistrate.

There will be judge-only trials for particularly technical and lengthy fraud and financial offences. However, jury trials will remain for the most serious offences, such as rape, murder, aggravated burglary, GBH and serious drug offences.

The changes, which will need primary legislation, are a major shake-up of the system. Although they do not go as far as original plans set out in a memo, which were leaked last week.

Riel Karmy-Jones KC, Chair of the Criminal Bar Association, told RollOnFriday, that the 'chopping and changing' by the government, made her question how well the measures had been thought through: "There has been no modelling, no costing, no piloting."

The KC said that despite the "government’s climb down" on the extent of the proposals, she still described the plans as being "a wrecking ball to a system that is fundamentally sound and has been in place for generations. Juries work – they do their job superbly, and without bias. Juries have not caused the backlog."

While jury trials may not be faultless, the Bar Council is also in favour of their preservation. Barbara Mills KC, chair of the Bar Council, told RollOnFriday: "We have continuously opposed proposals to curtail jury trials because there is no evidence that their removal would reduce the backlog nor has it been set out how an alternative system would be resourced."

The Bar Council chair added: "We urge the government to reconsider pursuing radical changes under the mistaken belief that radical equals effective.”

The Law Society vice president Brett Dixon criticised the government for "going beyond" Leveson's recommendations, which had suggested "two magistrates sitting alongside a judge in the new court," thus retaining "an element of lay participation in determining a person’s guilt or innocence."

Tom Franklin, the Magistrates’ Association Chief Executive, agreed that having magistrate involvement in the so-called 'swift courts' would "ensure that ordinary people are involved in both verdict and sentencing," as recommended by Leveson.

However, Lammy's proposals will mean that magistrates will have more work, as it will enable them to hear cases which carry a sentencing range of up to eighteen months’ imprisonment (up from one year, currently), with the option to extend it to two years.

Franklin said this was "a big vote of confidence in magistrates", but noted that more resources are needed, including the ability to recruit and train enough magistrates and legal advisers, as well as repairing and maintaining the crumbling court buildings (some also come with maggots and rats).

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Comments

"The Bar Council chair added: "We urge the government to reconsider pursuing radical changes under the mistaken belief that radical equals effective.”

Q: How many members of the Bar Council does it take to change a lightbulb?

A: CHANGE? NEVER!!!!

And lo, for there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the halls of the vested interests, who could not countenance that Britain should let go of its medieval habits and join the modern world in the way that it conducted criminal trials.

"Begads!" they cried out in their anachronistic tongues "our fundamental liberties have been dashed and now we resemble an authoritarian third-world hell-hole such as Canada!".

They wailed and howled until their beards grew long enough to trip upon.

Seriously though, this is Britain in a nutshell, the absolute tiniest creeping step towards modernisation and you've got a coalition of the great and good wailing in the streets to try and stop it. Oh no we haven't had enough committees yet, why hasn't anyone done any 'modelling' to be totally sure that going through the theatre of rounding up 12 random people every time and then shuffling them in and out of the court throughout the process to avoid them hearing any legal bits they aren't qualified to understand will speed things up? How can we possibly know whether it will be quicker if it's being done by a qualified person who knows what they're doing and comes in to do the same job every day of the week? Surely we need more enquiries and committees and public consultations and a statistical model and maybe it's too hard and we should just slump over and keep buggering on like everything is still steam powered.

Jesus wept, no wonder the country is so stuffed with change averse cretins like them stuffing the halls of power.

If I was in the dock I would trust a judge over a jury of my peers

Who needs juries when you live in a fake democracy that is rapidly turning into an overt police state?

This decision was obviously a long time in the planning. The underfunding of the justice system to create a backlog, the lack of police, the indifference of the police to crime, and you could even argue the pathetic sentences courts have been encouraged to give and the deliberate stoking of a migrant crisis which has allowed various criminal gangs to establish themselves in the uk. All has allowed crime to flourish and the system to appear in a state of collapse. In hindsight it was all quite clearly a deliberate plot to collapse the court system and thus justify the abolition of jury trials.

Meanwhile the government announced yesterday the roll out of facial recognition systems across the uk. They say it is to catch criminals and imply it is just a camera on a police van. (Again they need the rampant crime to justify their intended policy.) What they really mean is that they want to track everyone’s movements in real time. They will be using data centres and probably 5g infrastructure to relay cctv camera images and phone and bank card location pings back and forth so they can be analysed by AI in real time. Again this has clearly been planned for a long time as cctv cameras have been put up everywhere over the last 20 years, the 5g towers five years ago and data centres very recently. Such a system already exists in china. Furthermore starmer is said to have met with senior palantir figures on more than one occasion.

This is the same palantir whose ai systems decided what buildings in Gaza, israel should blow to smithereens based on which hamas operatives it estimated were inside with acceptable civilians deaths of up to 100 at per intended target and more if the target was deemed high value. Such a system is clearly intended for repression of the population and it is in this context the abolition of juries should be seen. They plan to use cameras and ai to issue fines and prison sentences and quite simply juries would get in the way of this, and slow it down, in a way that a fast track judge, with his career and pension to think about, will not

"This is the same palantir whose ai systems decided what buildings in Gaza, israel should blow to smithereens "

Should have guessed that Israel was going to make it into this conspiracy theory sooner rather than later...

More tinfoil, vicar?

It's actually because Lammy doesn't want Palestine Action activists to be acquitted like the Seeds of Hope women (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seeds_of_Hope).

They were found not guilty by a jury despite admitting to smashing up a hawk jet destined for Indonesia and "were acting to prevent British Aerospace and the British Government from aiding and abetting genocide [in East Timor]".

Juries have nothing to do with backlogs. I sat as a juror, waiting around most days in the lounge. As soon as the CPS, defence etc. are ready to go, they just call your name and in you go.

"Juries have nothing to do with backlogs. I sat as a juror, waiting around most days in the lounge. As soon as the CPS, defence etc. are ready to go, they just call your name and in you go"

And to think, all those great luminaries from the Bar Council needed to do if they wanted their informed, expert led, data driven analysis of whether jury trials have any part to play in court backlogs was to just swing by the RoF comment threads to find informed expert views such as this.

You say 'anecdote', we say 'unquestionable hard data from the school of life'.

l was on a jury a few years ago, 6 week trial about an affray. The jury took a week to come to a majority decision. What stuck in my mind was that some jurors were adamant x was guilty, and others equally adamant x was innocent. When the trial ended, and verdict pronounced, I checked on line (the affray had been filmed by various people), and we the jury had only been shown about half of what was filmed and posted on the internet. Luckily we got the right decision, but it could have been weeks shorter had we been shown all the footage. And the public expense…!