Monday, October 24, 2011

jail Fraill Joanne is a clear indication of why we must protect the eternal value of the jury

last week Fraill Joanne, a former member of the jury, was sent to prison after contacting a defendant in Facebook during the trial. Fraill not only revealed the details of the jury that the accused, who also used the Internet to discover information about another accused in the same case. The cost to the taxpayer to pursue the case and retry the defendants was 6 million pounds.

many reports focus on the fact that Ms. Fraill is the first juror to be found guilty of contempt of court by his use of a social networking site. That's it. Fraill using Facebook is neither here nor there. The real problem is this case revealed that, in this Internet age, is becoming more difficult to treat cases without prejudice.

This is not the first time a trial in jeopardy because the jury took matters into their own hands.

In 2008, a murder suspect free market of the court after his trial collapsed. A juror had visited and photographed the scene of the alleged crime, investigated the case on the Internet, and share their discoveries with their peers of the jury. He even sent the judge a Google Earth map of the scene of the alleged crime and 37 questions on the case. The judge had to stop the trial and dismiss the whole panel.

A trial involving charges of child cruelty was dismissed in similar circumstances, when a jury found what turned out to be false information about the defendant and shared online with your colleagues jurors. The case was tried later, at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers.

The Internet and the ease with which an overzealous allows jurors to conduct their own "research" is a real threat to the integrity of our criminal justice system and particularly the jury trial . We can not allow this to happen. Trial by jury is a cornerstone of a free society and recent research has demonstrated efficacy are jury trials in the delivery and defense of justice.

First, although the statistics suggest that jurors are more likely to condemn certain crimes than others, research shows that the logical meaning of the exercise and municipalities. The conviction rates are highest where they are most likely to be physically strong evidence incriminating the accused. For example, juries to convict more than nine out of ten people accused of taking indecent photographs of children and four out of five people accused of drug possession.

However, jurors are more reluctant to convict in the case becomes in the opinion of one word against another person or where it should reach a conclusion on the state of a defendant of the mind. This is one reason why the conviction for rape can be difficult for tax purposes. However, when there is sufficient evidence, a jury found the defendant guilty. Jurors convict in 55% of rape cases.

Second, juries show no racial prejudice. Recent research confirms that black and Asian defendants were more likely to be convicted by a jury that the accused whites and ethnic minorities are underrepresented on juries.

A common accusation against juries
that juries can not understand complex issues. This issue has been pushed to the fore in 2005 when a high profile case of fraud £ 60m - the "Jubilee Line" trial - has collapsed. The prosecution alleged that the problems with the jury forced the judge to leave the test.


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