This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
Yes, and the judge seemed to throw the (verbal) book at him: "Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke described Richards' actions as a "flagrant disobedience of the court's directions".'
Surely the discharge of him and his fellow jurors and a lecture on wasting the Court's time would have been sufficient.
A guy gets four months for misunderstanding a jury instruction which results in a delayed trial, whilst all those who defrauded the taxpayer by providing unusable PPE during a national panic, just get to sit and count the accruing interest on their ill gotten gains.
It's a funny old game Saint.
Sounds like he wasn’t even looking up anything about the trial itself, but about the definition of joint enterprise.
How is that worth 4 months in jail?
I suppose there is a cost of the suspended trial, but would it have been as much of a waste of taxpayers money as, say the repainting of JohnsonForce One a few years ago? As far as I am aware Johnson is still at liberty.
So the best option would be - I don’t understand what joint enterprise is because the end point of that is the judge and prosecution failed to explain the case so everyone is innocent
I expect the only thing the juror wanted to do was not feel like an idiot for not knowing something where it was being implied that the details were obvious
If a jury doesn't understand a point of law, they can - and should - ask to have it explained to them again.
Are courts set up so that at any, or a particular point, a juror can say "excuse me but come again I'm not sure what that meant"?
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
Yes it's absurd. We cannot afford to jail people for stuff like this. A fine would be appropriate.
He;s not even looking up details about the defendant, he's obviously just googled "joint enterprise" ffsake.
I've never served on a jury but if a lawyer used a legal term (like that one) that I didn't understand, am I just supposed to guess what it means? Is there a way you can ask the judge?
A great header and it's another example of Broken Britain.
Why won't the ex DPP fix this?
Governing is difficult and Downing Street appears to be under siege at the moment, beset by issues The "we have no money" mentality where due to arbitrary rules criminal justice costs money we don't have but crime is free
The Reeves budget should announce a 10 year programme to invest out of the hole. Instead we will have a tax on wheelchairs and cuts deep enough to throw the real economy recession into actual statistical no arguing this is a recession.
It's an excellent article. @rcs1000 describes one of the bottlenecks very well.
Why has it arisen? I'll tell you why - and it is exactly the same reason as I said in August 2019 -
"The legal system has few friends. There is an assumption that it mostly deals with the criminal and the feckless. Few politicians care about them. It has no “Aaah” factor. Most people hope never to encounter it. Those who are caught up in it are generally appalled by the experience. It has been in recent years put in the care, if that is the word, of politicians with little knowledge about it and little willingness to learn, let alone to fight to make it better.
For 6 years from 2012 to 2018, no lawyer was deemed worthy to be Minister of Justice, the choice instead falling on Chris Grayling and Liz Truss, about whom the word “second-rate” would be an undeserved compliment. Michael Gove spent much of his time undoing the damage caused by his predecessor. Few Ministers lasted more than a year. And who was responsible for the police? Well, one Mrs May, followed by Amber Rudd and Sajid Javid. Enough said.
Lawyers, however eloquent they may be on behalf of their clients, are generally hopeless at explaining why law and justice matter to anyone other than fellow lawyers. But our legal system does matter, very much indeed. There is no more important function of the state than the maintenance of law and order.
Crucial to that are a competent police force, a legal system which works and in which equality under the law and access to justice are not simply empty phrases, prisons which are something other than a breeding ground of violence and hopelessness and a probation service which works. All these aspects matter not just one of them.
The rule of law is not simply an airy phrase: it is the reality of a state able to keep its citizens safe, a state able to apprehend criminals, a state able to dispense justice, a state able find the right balance between the rights of the innocent and the guilty, a state able to enforce its laws, a state able to punish fairly and provide the hope of rehabilitation for those who have paid their dues. ........
The rule of law in its widest sense is something of which Britain ought to be proud; it has probably had a greater claim than the NHS to be considered “the envy of the world“. But for too long it has been neglected, downgraded, ignored and managed by penny pinchers who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Futile as this plea may be, it is long past the time for this to stop."
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
We've just had a discussion about why Milei is probably correct to have massively cut public spending. We're now discussing why Osbourn and his successors were wrong to cut the growth in public spending...
We evidently aren't a really society which penny pinches, other than very selectively. And we usually select the wrong things to penny pinch.
Guyana would probably be pleased if Maduro fell to the Americans, and his acquisitive eyeing of newfound Guyanan (Guyanese?) oil fields came to nought.
Until Trump’s acquisitive eye fell upon them!
Guyana's selling a lot of oil to the US and Europe. And, unlike Venezuela, they're not cosying up to Putin in a big way.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
So what happens if a juror already understands concepts like Joint Enterprise? Doesn't need to be naughty and Google it, already has the knowledge?
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
How far would a serious restriction in jury trials help? The Anglosphere is I think unusual in the scope of jury trials, which is only defensible if we actually provide enough jury trial facilities,
It's an excellent article. @rcs1000 describes one of the bottlenecks very well.
Why has it arisen? I'll tell you why - and it is exactly the same reason as I said in August 2019 -
"The legal system has few friends. There is an assumption that it mostly deals with the criminal and the feckless. Few politicians care about them. It has no “Aaah” factor. Most people hope never to encounter it. Those who are caught up in it are generally appalled by the experience. It has been in recent years put in the care, if that is the word, of politicians with little knowledge about it and little willingness to learn, let alone to fight to make it better.
For 6 years from 2012 to 2018, no lawyer was deemed worthy to be Minister of Justice, the choice instead falling on Chris Grayling and Liz Truss, about whom the word “second-rate” would be an undeserved compliment. Michael Gove spent much of his time undoing the damage caused by his predecessor. Few Ministers lasted more than a year. And who was responsible for the police? Well, one Mrs May, followed by Amber Rudd and Sajid Javid. Enough said.
Lawyers, however eloquent they may be on behalf of their clients, are generally hopeless at explaining why law and justice matter to anyone other than fellow lawyers. But our legal system does matter, very much indeed. There is no more important function of the state than the maintenance of law and order.
Crucial to that are a competent police force, a legal system which works and in which equality under the law and access to justice are not simply empty phrases, prisons which are something other than a breeding ground of violence and hopelessness and a probation service which works. All these aspects matter not just one of them.
The rule of law is not simply an airy phrase: it is the reality of a state able to keep its citizens safe, a state able to apprehend criminals, a state able to dispense justice, a state able find the right balance between the rights of the innocent and the guilty, a state able to enforce its laws, a state able to punish fairly and provide the hope of rehabilitation for those who have paid their dues. ........
The rule of law in its widest sense is something of which Britain ought to be proud; it has probably had a greater claim than the NHS to be considered “the envy of the world“. But for too long it has been neglected, downgraded, ignored and managed by penny pinchers who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Futile as this plea may be, it is long past the time for this to stop."
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
One of our problems derives from Mrs Thatcher's views. I recall her saying something like her preferring that the best minds from Oxford and Cambridge (I know, I know) should go into the City rather than public service. Up until then very bright students would include public service, as Civil Servants in their career options. After that, not so much.
This allows me to get back on my hobby horse of calling the big change of UK society and the divisions over the past 40 years. Before Fatch indeed bright young things would go into all kinds of occupations - doctors, civil servants, yes finance, but that was only one of several options. All paid roughly the same, perhaps the City a smidge more.
Then Big Bang happened, the US banks took over the UK merchant banks and began to pay megabucks for the people to work there (or at "their" bank, rather than another one). City salaries skyrocketed and hence any sensible grad, Oxbridge or not, would likely try to get a job in finance, rather than become a doctor or a civil servant, etc.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
Yes it's absurd. We cannot afford to jail people for stuff like this. A fine would be appropriate.
He;s not even looking up details about the defendant, he's obviously just googled "joint enterprise" ffsake.
I've never served on a jury but if a lawyer used a legal term (like that one) that I didn't understand, am I just supposed to guess what it means? Is there a way you can ask the judge?
Actually, I am wrong, Looking this up, juries in criminal trials can rely only on the legal guidance given to them by the judge in his summing up (along with the submissions of the prosecution and defence). They can ask for that guidance to be repeated to them during their deliberations, but that is it.
(I think the procedure in (eg) inquests is a bit different.)
It's an excellent article. @rcs1000 describes one of the bottlenecks very well.
Why has it arisen? I'll tell you why - and it is exactly the same reason as I said in August 2019 -
"The legal system has few friends. There is an assumption that it mostly deals with the criminal and the feckless. Few politicians care about them. It has no “Aaah” factor. Most people hope never to encounter it. Those who are caught up in it are generally appalled by the experience. It has been in recent years put in the care, if that is the word, of politicians with little knowledge about it and little willingness to learn, let alone to fight to make it better.
For 6 years from 2012 to 2018, no lawyer was deemed worthy to be Minister of Justice, the choice instead falling on Chris Grayling and Liz Truss, about whom the word “second-rate” would be an undeserved compliment. Michael Gove spent much of his time undoing the damage caused by his predecessor. Few Ministers lasted more than a year. And who was responsible for the police? Well, one Mrs May, followed by Amber Rudd and Sajid Javid. Enough said.
Lawyers, however eloquent they may be on behalf of their clients, are generally hopeless at explaining why law and justice matter to anyone other than fellow lawyers. But our legal system does matter, very much indeed. There is no more important function of the state than the maintenance of law and order.
Crucial to that are a competent police force, a legal system which works and in which equality under the law and access to justice are not simply empty phrases, prisons which are something other than a breeding ground of violence and hopelessness and a probation service which works. All these aspects matter not just one of them.
The rule of law is not simply an airy phrase: it is the reality of a state able to keep its citizens safe, a state able to apprehend criminals, a state able to dispense justice, a state able find the right balance between the rights of the innocent and the guilty, a state able to enforce its laws, a state able to punish fairly and provide the hope of rehabilitation for those who have paid their dues. ........
The rule of law in its widest sense is something of which Britain ought to be proud; it has probably had a greater claim than the NHS to be considered “the envy of the world“. But for too long it has been neglected, downgraded, ignored and managed by penny pinchers who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Futile as this plea may be, it is long past the time for this to stop."
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
We've just had a discussion about why Milei is probably correct to have massively cut public spending. We're now discussing why Osbourn and his successors were wrong to cut the growth in public spending...
We evidently aren't a really society which penny pinches, other than very selectively. And we usually select the wrong things to penny pinch.
Pretty sure I disagree.
There's a hefty and enduring gap between what the government gets in taxes and what it spends.
There are two honourable ways out of that. One is to accept that the state should really do less for us. (Not other people, us). The other is that we should pay more. (Again, not other people, us.)
Trouble is, those are routes to electoral defeat, and those routes have very few bottlenecks. So, instead, we tend to vote for dishonourable answers;
1 Borrowing the gap (fine if future us will be significantly richer than current us, which looks heroic right now) 2 Selling stuff off and spending the one-off receipts as ongoing expenditure (something something MacMillan something family silver) 3 Pretending things and people cost less than they really do (you can buck the employment market for a bit, but in the long run you get the quality and quantity of staff you are willing to pay for) 4 Extending maintenance cycles (fine until things actually fall apart).
We know that borrowing risks stealing from the future. First problem is so do options 2-4. Second problem is that future seems to have become the present.
** looks at her multiple headers saying the same thing over the last 8 years and smiles to herself: "What took you so long?".
Makes mental note to change her name to Cassandra. **
Aren't you grateful that you're finally getting through to people ? For most of us, that remains a mere aspiration.
I find the approach to problem analysis and possible resolution here described by @rcs1000 interesting. There is value in seeing how very different sectors and disciplines analyse problems because it can help clarify both what the problems are and how they might be resolved or ameliorated by small iterative steps.
Whether anyone with the power to do anything about it has been remotely influenced or persuaded or even read anything I've written on here I doubt. Yes I'm grateful that others write about the same topics from a different perspective and/or think the subject worth talking about.
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
How far would a serious restriction in jury trials help? The Anglosphere is I think unusual in the scope of jury trials, which is only defensible if we actually provide enough jury trial facilities,
It wouldn't help in the slightest. It just creates yet more problems and finishes the destruction of a system worth cherishing.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
Yes it's absurd. We cannot afford to jail people for stuff like this. A fine would be appropriate.
He;s not even looking up details about the defendant, he's obviously just googled "joint enterprise" ffsake.
You very soon discover R v Jogee, SC 2016. Any juror who masters its 37 pages, which follow a three day hearing with about 14 very senior barristers augmenting their meagre stipends, keeping the wolf from the door and their fires lit for a day or two, deserves to stay out of prison himself.
(It was also a rare case of a judgment jointly of the SC and the Privy Council).
It's an excellent article. @rcs1000 describes one of the bottlenecks very well.
Why has it arisen? I'll tell you why - and it is exactly the same reason as I said in August 2019 -
"The legal system has few friends. There is an assumption that it mostly deals with the criminal and the feckless. Few politicians care about them. It has no “Aaah” factor. Most people hope never to encounter it. Those who are caught up in it are generally appalled by the experience. It has been in recent years put in the care, if that is the word, of politicians with little knowledge about it and little willingness to learn, let alone to fight to make it better.
For 6 years from 2012 to 2018, no lawyer was deemed worthy to be Minister of Justice, the choice instead falling on Chris Grayling and Liz Truss, about whom the word “second-rate” would be an undeserved compliment. Michael Gove spent much of his time undoing the damage caused by his predecessor. Few Ministers lasted more than a year. And who was responsible for the police? Well, one Mrs May, followed by Amber Rudd and Sajid Javid. Enough said.
Lawyers, however eloquent they may be on behalf of their clients, are generally hopeless at explaining why law and justice matter to anyone other than fellow lawyers. But our legal system does matter, very much indeed. There is no more important function of the state than the maintenance of law and order.
Crucial to that are a competent police force, a legal system which works and in which equality under the law and access to justice are not simply empty phrases, prisons which are something other than a breeding ground of violence and hopelessness and a probation service which works. All these aspects matter not just one of them.
The rule of law is not simply an airy phrase: it is the reality of a state able to keep its citizens safe, a state able to apprehend criminals, a state able to dispense justice, a state able find the right balance between the rights of the innocent and the guilty, a state able to enforce its laws, a state able to punish fairly and provide the hope of rehabilitation for those who have paid their dues. ........
The rule of law in its widest sense is something of which Britain ought to be proud; it has probably had a greater claim than the NHS to be considered “the envy of the world“. But for too long it has been neglected, downgraded, ignored and managed by penny pinchers who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Futile as this plea may be, it is long past the time for this to stop."
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
We've just had a discussion about why Milei is probably correct to have massively cut public spending. We're now discussing why Osbourn and his successors were wrong to cut the growth in public spending...
We evidently aren't a really society which penny pinches, other than very selectively. And we usually select the wrong things to penny pinch.
Pretty sure I disagree.
There's a hefty and enduring gap between what the government gets in taxes and what it spends.
There are two honourable ways out of that. One is to accept that the state should really do less for us. (Not other people, us). The other is that we should pay more. (Again, not other people, us.)
Trouble is, those are routes to electoral defeat, and those routes have very few bottlenecks. So, instead, we tend to vote for dishonourable answers;
1 Borrowing the gap (fine if future us will be significantly richer than current us, which looks heroic right now) 2 Selling stuff off and spending the one-off receipts as ongoing expenditure (something something MacMillan something family silver) 3 Pretending things and people cost less than they really do (you can buck the employment market for a bit, but in the long run you get the quality and quantity of staff you are willing to pay for) 4 Extending maintenance cycles (fine until things actually fall apart).
We know that borrowing risks stealing from the future. First problem is so do options 2-4. Second problem is that future seems to have become the present.
The real trick is working out what spending is completely unavoidable, And then working out what spending has decent ROI, versus that which really doesn't.
In every case half the lawyers are attempting to secure a miscarriage of justice. If they are good at this they become judges.
This just isn't correct.
The prosecution is presenting evidence which, if accepted by the jury, should be sufficient to convict (the judge will step in to end the trial if the evidence, even if accepted, would be insufficient).
The defence is there to provide reasons why elements of the prosecution case shouldn't be accepted such that there is reasonable doubt that a conviction would be safe.
A misconception is that acquittal of a person who did in fact do the crime is necessarily a "miscarriage of justice". It isn't - the system is very specifically set up on the basis we're much more concerned about Type I errors (wrongful conviction) than Type II errors (acquittal of someone who is in fact guilty). We're prepared to tolerate a level of the latter to ensure there's a strong burden on the state to gather sufficient evidence before depriving someone of their liberty.
Acquittal of a person who is in fact guilty clearly denies justice to victims. However, more widely it upholds justice by reinforcing the point you can't be deprived of your liberty based on mere suspicion.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
So what happens if a juror already understands concepts like Joint Enterprise? Doesn't need to be naughty and Google it, already has the knowledge?
It doesn't matter. The whole point of juries is that they bring their existing knowledge with them. The judge will explain what they have to decide and what the relevant law is and how to approach the evidence they have heard. And then it's up to them - but, as far as possible, it is based on what they have heard in the courtroom and what the judge has told them. It is very much harder for a single juror to say to the other 11, well this is what joint enterprise is and I know better than the judge so listen to me instead.
One more reason why suspended your brain and subcontracting critical faculties to 'the computer' is so dangerous. It also shows the limitations of things like AI, despite the giddy over-egging of the cake by some enthusiasts.
[AI is changing things massively, I don't underestimate that, but it's capacity and limitations should always be remembered].
** looks at her multiple headers saying the same thing over the last 8 years and smiles to herself: "What took you so long?".
Makes mental note to change her name to Cassandra. **
Aren't you grateful that you're finally getting through to people ? For most of us, that remains a mere aspiration.
I find the approach to problem analysis and possible resolution here described by @rcs1000 interesting. There is value in seeing how very different sectors and disciplines analyse problems because it can help clarify both what the problems are and how they might be resolved or ameliorated by small iterative steps.
Whether anyone with the power to do anything about it has been remotely influenced or persuaded or even read anything I've written on here I doubt. Yes I'm grateful that others write about the same topics from a different perspective and/or think the subject worth talking about.
Occasionally I just long for some action though.
I'm a massive fan of small iterative steps.
Politicians tend not to have that patience, which is partly why I noted the rapid turnover of Justice Secretaries upthread. The only one who stayed in post long enough that they might have made a positive difference was... Grayling.
(And also, I think you might underestimate your influence.)
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
Yes, and the judge seemed to throw the (verbal) book at him: "Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke described Richards' actions as a "flagrant disobedience of the court's directions".'
Surely the discharge of him and his fellow jurors and a lecture on wasting the Court's time would have been sufficient.
A guy gets four months for misunderstanding a jury instruction which results in a delayed trial, whilst all those who defrauded the taxpayer by providing unusable PPE during a national panic, just get to sit and count the accruing interest on their ill gotten gains.
It's a funny old game Saint.
Sounds like he wasn’t even looking up anything about the trial itself, but about the definition of joint enterprise.
How is that worth 4 months in jail?
I suppose there is a cost of the suspended trial, but would it have been as much of a waste of taxpayers money as, say the repainting of JohnsonForce One a few years ago? As far as I am aware Johnson is still at liberty.
So the best option would be - I don’t understand what joint enterprise is because the end point of that is the judge and prosecution failed to explain the case so everyone is innocent
I expect the only thing the juror wanted to do was not feel like an idiot for not knowing something where it was being implied that the details were obvious
If a jury doesn't understand a point of law, they can - and should - ask to have it explained to them again.
Are courts set up so that at any, or a particular point, a juror can say "excuse me but come again I'm not sure what that meant"?
It's an excellent article. @rcs1000 describes one of the bottlenecks very well.
Why has it arisen? I'll tell you why - and it is exactly the same reason as I said in August 2019 -
"The legal system has few friends. There is an assumption that it mostly deals with the criminal and the feckless. Few politicians care about them. It has no “Aaah” factor. Most people hope never to encounter it. Those who are caught up in it are generally appalled by the experience. It has been in recent years put in the care, if that is the word, of politicians with little knowledge about it and little willingness to learn, let alone to fight to make it better.
For 6 years from 2012 to 2018, no lawyer was deemed worthy to be Minister of Justice, the choice instead falling on Chris Grayling and Liz Truss, about whom the word “second-rate” would be an undeserved compliment. Michael Gove spent much of his time undoing the damage caused by his predecessor. Few Ministers lasted more than a year. And who was responsible for the police? Well, one Mrs May, followed by Amber Rudd and Sajid Javid. Enough said.
Lawyers, however eloquent they may be on behalf of their clients, are generally hopeless at explaining why law and justice matter to anyone other than fellow lawyers. But our legal system does matter, very much indeed. There is no more important function of the state than the maintenance of law and order.
Crucial to that are a competent police force, a legal system which works and in which equality under the law and access to justice are not simply empty phrases, prisons which are something other than a breeding ground of violence and hopelessness and a probation service which works. All these aspects matter not just one of them.
The rule of law is not simply an airy phrase: it is the reality of a state able to keep its citizens safe, a state able to apprehend criminals, a state able to dispense justice, a state able find the right balance between the rights of the innocent and the guilty, a state able to enforce its laws, a state able to punish fairly and provide the hope of rehabilitation for those who have paid their dues. ........
The rule of law in its widest sense is something of which Britain ought to be proud; it has probably had a greater claim than the NHS to be considered “the envy of the world“. But for too long it has been neglected, downgraded, ignored and managed by penny pinchers who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Futile as this plea may be, it is long past the time for this to stop."
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
One of our problems derives from Mrs Thatcher's views. I recall her saying something like her preferring that the best minds from Oxford and Cambridge (I know, I know) should go into the City rather than public service. Up until then very bright students would include public service, as Civil Servants in their career options. After that, not so much.
This allows me to get back on my hobby horse of calling the big change of UK society and the divisions over the past 40 years. Before Fatch indeed bright young things would go into all kinds of occupations - doctors, civil servants, yes finance, but that was only one of several options. All paid roughly the same, perhaps the City a smidge more.
Then Big Bang happened, the US banks took over the UK merchant banks and began to pay megabucks for the people to work there (or at "their" bank, rather than another one). City salaries skyrocketed and hence any sensible grad, Oxbridge or not, would likely try to get a job in finance, rather than become a doctor or a civil servant, etc.
And linked to that, it means that the elite has lost a lot of its sense of the long term.
My Jenny-come-lately Cambridge College is over 150 years old. The British Army is 350 years old, depending on when you start counting. The Church of England, 450 years (same Ts and C's). All institutions that were around long before me, and intend to be around long after me. It ties in with that old Tory thing of inheritance as a duty.
High finance seems to think it's doing well with a ten year horizon. No wonder so much of the country gets sold off for parts.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
Yes, and the judge seemed to throw the (verbal) book at him: "Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke described Richards' actions as a "flagrant disobedience of the court's directions".'
Surely the discharge of him and his fellow jurors and a lecture on wasting the Court's time would have been sufficient.
A guy gets four months for misunderstanding a jury instruction which results in a delayed trial, whilst all those who defrauded the taxpayer by providing unusable PPE during a national panic, just get to sit and count the accruing interest on their ill gotten gains.
It's a funny old game Saint.
Sounds like he wasn’t even looking up anything about the trial itself, but about the definition of joint enterprise.
How is that worth 4 months in jail?
I suppose there is a cost of the suspended trial, but would it have been as much of a waste of taxpayers money as, say the repainting of JohnsonForce One a few years ago? As far as I am aware Johnson is still at liberty.
So the best option would be - I don’t understand what joint enterprise is because the end point of that is the judge and prosecution failed to explain the case so everyone is innocent
I expect the only thing the juror wanted to do was not feel like an idiot for not knowing something where it was being implied that the details were obvious
If a jury doesn't understand a point of law, they can - and should - ask to have it explained to them again.
Are courts set up so that at any, or a particular point, a juror can say "excuse me but come again I'm not sure what that meant"?
Yes - they can. And do.
Not once they have retired to decide on the verdict, I think ?
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
Yes it's absurd. We cannot afford to jail people for stuff like this. A fine would be appropriate.
He;s not even looking up details about the defendant, he's obviously just googled "joint enterprise" ffsake.
I've never served on a jury but if a lawyer used a legal term (like that one) that I didn't understand, am I just supposed to guess what it means? Is there a way you can ask the judge?
Actually, I am wrong, Looking this up, juries in criminal trials can rely only on the legal guidance given to them by the judge in his summing up (along with the submissions of the prosecution and defence). They can ask for that guidance to be repeated to them during their deliberations, but that is it.
(I think the procedure in (eg) inquests is a bit different.)
Jurors are told they must take the law from the judge, (and not from prosecution or defence lawyers). Arguments about law, or how the judge should express it to the jurors in summing up are conducted in the absence of the jury beforehand. prosecution and defence can both loudly commend to the jury how the law relates to their version of what the facts are. Facts are entirely for the jury, however perverse their decision. The judge often gives a steer as to what a sane finding on certain critical facts may be. Tone of voice is often an indicator.
Incidentally (I don't know the facts of this juror case) I can't see that looking up bits of law on the internet can ever of itself be an offence, any more than possessing and reading a criminal law text book can be an offence.
Judges are increasingly formulaic in their summing up, and increasingly try to agree stuff with the lawyers in advance. They have a mighty volume before them giving outlines of what to say in a multitude of situations.
Great header. It is also what we know in biology as the "rate limiting step".
It speaks to me of how useless Starmer is. He may not know much about other things but has decades of experience of the criminal justice system and should be completely familiar with the delays, yet has failed to tackle it at all.
Interesting that different disciplines have their own terminology for what’s basically the same idea, that there’s always one point that dictates the speed of the whole process.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
So what happens if a juror already understands concepts like Joint Enterprise? Doesn't need to be naughty and Google it, already has the knowledge?
It doesn't matter. The whole point of juries is that they bring their existing knowledge with them. The judge will explain what they have to decide and what the relevant law is and how to approach the evidence they have heard. And then it's up to them - but, as far as possible, it is based on what they have heard in the courtroom and what the judge has told them. It is very much harder for a single juror to say to the other 11, well this is what joint enterprise is and I know better than the judge so listen to me instead.
He was certainly of the opinion that restricting the right to jury trial was at least a part of the solution. His second part, the Efficiency Review, is still to come. Hopefully he will look to address the multistage problems there.
It's an excellent article. @rcs1000 describes one of the bottlenecks very well.
Why has it arisen? I'll tell you why - and it is exactly the same reason as I said in August 2019 -
"The legal system has few friends. There is an assumption that it mostly deals with the criminal and the feckless. Few politicians care about them. It has no “Aaah” factor. Most people hope never to encounter it. Those who are caught up in it are generally appalled by the experience. It has been in recent years put in the care, if that is the word, of politicians with little knowledge about it and little willingness to learn, let alone to fight to make it better.
For 6 years from 2012 to 2018, no lawyer was deemed worthy to be Minister of Justice, the choice instead falling on Chris Grayling and Liz Truss, about whom the word “second-rate” would be an undeserved compliment. Michael Gove spent much of his time undoing the damage caused by his predecessor. Few Ministers lasted more than a year. And who was responsible for the police? Well, one Mrs May, followed by Amber Rudd and Sajid Javid. Enough said.
Lawyers, however eloquent they may be on behalf of their clients, are generally hopeless at explaining why law and justice matter to anyone other than fellow lawyers. But our legal system does matter, very much indeed. There is no more important function of the state than the maintenance of law and order.
Crucial to that are a competent police force, a legal system which works and in which equality under the law and access to justice are not simply empty phrases, prisons which are something other than a breeding ground of violence and hopelessness and a probation service which works. All these aspects matter not just one of them.
The rule of law is not simply an airy phrase: it is the reality of a state able to keep its citizens safe, a state able to apprehend criminals, a state able to dispense justice, a state able find the right balance between the rights of the innocent and the guilty, a state able to enforce its laws, a state able to punish fairly and provide the hope of rehabilitation for those who have paid their dues. ........
The rule of law in its widest sense is something of which Britain ought to be proud; it has probably had a greater claim than the NHS to be considered “the envy of the world“. But for too long it has been neglected, downgraded, ignored and managed by penny pinchers who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Futile as this plea may be, it is long past the time for this to stop."
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
One of our problems derives from Mrs Thatcher's views. I recall her saying something like her preferring that the best minds from Oxford and Cambridge (I know, I know) should go into the City rather than public service. Up until then very bright students would include public service, as Civil Servants in their career options. After that, not so much.
This allows me to get back on my hobby horse of calling the big change of UK society and the divisions over the past 40 years. Before Fatch indeed bright young things would go into all kinds of occupations - doctors, civil servants, yes finance, but that was only one of several options. All paid roughly the same, perhaps the City a smidge more.
Then Big Bang happened, the US banks took over the UK merchant banks and began to pay megabucks for the people to work there (or at "their" bank, rather than another one). City salaries skyrocketed and hence any sensible grad, Oxbridge or not, would likely try to get a job in finance, rather than become a doctor or a civil servant, etc.
And linked to that, it means that the elite has lost a lot of its sense of the long term.
My Jenny-come-lately Cambridge College is over 150 years old. The British Army is 350 years old, depending on when you start counting. The Church of England, 450 years (same Ts and C's). All institutions that were around long before me, and intend to be around long after me. It ties in with that old Tory thing of inheritance as a duty.
High finance seems to think it's doing well with a ten year horizon. No wonder so much of the country gets sold off for parts.
The big tech and population acceleration that really got going in the 18th/19th century has skewed those sort of views. In 1400 you could design a piece of infrastructure (a bridge or a windmill) and say - with a bit of maintenance - it'll be good for 200 years of demand and utility. You just can't do that today. And, while population growth is slowing, tech development doesn't appear to be.
I don't think it's a terribly contentious idea that bottlenecks are the reason why processes are inefficient. The more interesting issue is why such bottlenecks become apparently unresolvable, and the reasons that spring to mind are politics, tradition and self-interest.
Poliitics is the big one, I think. In a democracy, it is difficult to justify to an unintelligent population why money should be spent on the unsexy resolution of bottlenecks rather than highly visible stuff. More lawyers - boo, More police - yay!
Then there is tradition. This is how we've always done things, so this is how we'll carry on doing it, even if it doesn't really work in the modern era.
An then self-interest. Those that are doing well out of the current system are not going to be especially keen to change it.
I realise this will get me the ban hammer, but it's all George Osborne's fault.
The oft-quoted "austerity", backed, unfortunately, by the LDs in Coalition, continues to resonate through our society. From 2010, while some parts of the public sector (health, education) were left unscathed, other areas suffered savage cuts. Local Government suffered badly with over one million posts lost and savage cuts to services leaving councils vulnerable to the rise of social care demand.
We now see the impacts of the dreadful decisions implemented by Theresa May at the Home Office aided and abetted by idiots like Boris Johnson when Mayor of London. It wasn't just the cuts to Police numbers but the selling off of operational Police offices which effectively distanced law enforcement from the general public but also the closure of court buildings such as Magistrates Courts.
Labour, a decade and a half later, are paying the political consequences for the failings of their predecessors but that's how politics works and they've been left holding the hand grenade. The problem, as we know, is spending money on courts and lawyers isn't popular while making extravagant promised about recruiting more Police (Kemi Badenoch and before her Susan Hall when campaigning to be Mayor of London) are what the public (whose perceptions of criminality are often at huge variance to the facts) want to hear.
Agree with most of your post, but Health wasn't left unscathed, the waiting list increases stem from austerity.
So what other source of free money do you propose the government use for endless increased spending?
Austerity and spending cuts are the only way out and if that means the state does less and life expectancy falls by a couple of years then so be it.
The justice system mailaise is the same. It's endless recourse to appeals, judicial reviews and poor quality lower court judgements that gum up the system. How many immigration tribunals come up with completely insane rulings which then get overturned on appeal?
The bottleneck is the low quality of the judiciary not funding. If lower court justices got the rulings right first time out instead of letting all of the criminals walk free and illegal immigrants evade deportation there would be much more bandwidth because higher courts wouldn't waste endless time and resource overturning those insane judgements in turn releasing more bandwidth for trials.
No, it's time to do more for less just like the rest of the country. Let's start with making sure judges are making correct rulings and not having them constantly overturned by higher courts before putting more money in. If that means remedial training for the ones that keep getting it wrong or just pensioning them off then that's also an option.
Great header. It is also what we know in biology as the "rate limiting step".
It speaks to me of how useless Starmer is. He may not know much about other things but has decades of experience of the criminal justice system and should be completely familiar with the delays, yet has failed to tackle it at all.
Interesting that different disciplines have their own terminology for what’s basically the same idea, that there’s always one point that dictates the speed of the whole process.
For warfare: "schwerpunkt"
I'm going to respectfully disagree. The schwerpunkt - lit the point of the spear - was actually dependent on the supply chain. Hence the ultimate failure in front of Moscow (unable to supply the front across the distance with a railway of a different gauge and shit roads) and the Battle of the Bulge (no petrol, poor, difficult terrain).
Great header. It is also what we know in biology as the "rate limiting step".
It speaks to me of how useless Starmer is. He may not know much about other things but has decades of experience of the criminal justice system and should be completely familiar with the delays, yet has failed to tackle it at all.
Interesting that different disciplines have their own terminology for what’s basically the same idea, that there’s always one point that dictates the speed of the whole process.
For warfare: "schwerpunkt"
I'm going to respectfully disagree. The schwerpunkt - lit the point of the spear - was actually dependent on the supply chain. Hence the ultimate failure in front of Moscow (unable to supply the front across the distance with a railway of a different gauge and shit roads) and the Battle of the Bulge (no petrol, poor, difficult terrain).
It’s 2025 and there’s still problems with getting petrol to Moscow 😉
Is Twitter putting me away or has the Argie PM smashed the mid terms out of the park?
He did, much to the annoyance of the FT and Economist who have been cheering his downfall for the last month as he smashes his way through the liberal economic consensus on cutting spending and welfare.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
So what happens if a juror already understands concepts like Joint Enterprise? Doesn't need to be naughty and Google it, already has the knowledge?
It doesn't matter. The whole point of juries is that they bring their existing knowledge with them. The judge will explain what they have to decide and what the relevant law is and how to approach the evidence they have heard. And then it's up to them - but, as far as possible, it is based on what they have heard in the courtroom and what the judge has told them. It is very much harder for a single juror to say to the other 11, well this is what joint enterprise is and I know better than the judge so listen to me instead.
He was certainly of the opinion that restricting the right to jury trial was at least a part of the solution. His second part, the Efficiency Review, is still to come. Hopefully he will look to address the multistage problems there.
Having done jury service a couple of months ago, I would be in favour of abolishing jury trials as far as possible. As a retired solicitor I found the whole process immensely frustrating.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
So what happens if a juror already understands concepts like Joint Enterprise? Doesn't need to be naughty and Google it, already has the knowledge?
It doesn't matter. The whole point of juries is that they bring their existing knowledge with them. The judge will explain what they have to decide and what the relevant law is and how to approach the evidence they have heard. And then it's up to them - but, as far as possible, it is based on what they have heard in the courtroom and what the judge has told them. It is very much harder for a single juror to say to the other 11, well this is what joint enterprise is and I know better than the judge so listen to me instead.
Sure. So I'm sat on a jury and evidence is being presented and I think "this sounds like joint enterprise". That hasn't formally been presented but its there. If I sit in the jury room and tell the jurors "I think it sounds like x" is that a crime? When juries can acquit for whatever reason they see fit?
Is Twitter putting me away or has the Argie PM smashed the mid terms out of the park?
He did, much to the annoyance of the FT and Economist who have been cheering his downfall for the last month as he smashes his way through the liberal economic consensus on cutting spending and welfare.
It's not great, but the operating company is still trading.
For all of the political bricks that will be thrown around does the absolutism used by Tories / Reform / SNP / Labour etc actually help? The industry needs stability and isn't getting it. Drill Baby Drill is as unhelpful as don't drill.
Great header. It is also what we know in biology as the "rate limiting step".
It speaks to me of how useless Starmer is. He may not know much about other things but has decades of experience of the criminal justice system and should be completely familiar with the delays, yet has failed to tackle it at all.
Interesting that different disciplines have their own terminology for what’s basically the same idea, that there’s always one point that dictates the speed of the whole process.
For warfare: "schwerpunkt"
I'm going to respectfully disagree. The schwerpunkt - lit the point of the spear - was actually dependent on the supply chain. Hence the ultimate failure in front of Moscow (unable to supply the front across the distance with a railway of a different gauge and shit roads) and the Battle of the Bulge (no petrol, poor, difficult terrain).
The absolutely literal meaning of Schwerpunkt is "heavy point". The slightly less literal meaning is "centre of gravity", and the commonly used meaning is "focus" or "main target". I don't think there's any link to spears.
Great header. It is also what we know in biology as the "rate limiting step".
It speaks to me of how useless Starmer is. He may not know much about other things but has decades of experience of the criminal justice system and should be completely familiar with the delays, yet has failed to tackle it at all.
Interesting that different disciplines have their own terminology for what’s basically the same idea, that there’s always one point that dictates the speed of the whole process.
For warfare: "schwerpunkt"
I'm going to respectfully disagree. The schwerpunkt - lit the point of the spear - was actually dependent on the supply chain. Hence the ultimate failure in front of Moscow (unable to supply the front across the distance with a railway of a different gauge and shit roads) and the Battle of the Bulge (no petrol, poor, difficult terrain).
The absolutely literal meaning of Schwerpunkt is "heavy point". The slightly less literal meaning is "centre of gravity", and the commonly used meaning is "focus" or "main target". I don't think there's any link to spears.
It's not great, but the operating company is still trading.
For all of the political bricks that will be thrown around does the absolutism used by Tories / Reform / SNP / Labour etc actually help? The industry needs stability and isn't getting it. Drill Baby Drill is as unhelpful as don't drill.
We come back to the point
1) make a decision 2) stick to it 3) let people get on doing what you’ve asked them to do
One thing I’ve picked up on is our Government have used outsourcing as an excuse to let them stop and start things and all that does is add on money and lost time.
Once a decision has been made just leave people to get on and implement what you asked them to do
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
How far would a serious restriction in jury trials help? The Anglosphere is I think unusual in the scope of jury trials, which is only defensible if we actually provide enough jury trial facilities,
It wouldn't help in the slightest. It just creates yet more problems and finishes the destruction of a system worth cherishing.
Surely jury trials take longer than non-jury trials? You have to instruct people and stuff like that. Doesn't that slow things down...
Do you really think it wont have any benefit on the backlog, or is it just that you'd rather keep jury trials?
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
So what happens if a juror already understands concepts like Joint Enterprise? Doesn't need to be naughty and Google it, already has the knowledge?
It doesn't matter. The whole point of juries is that they bring their existing knowledge with them. The judge will explain what they have to decide and what the relevant law is and how to approach the evidence they have heard. And then it's up to them - but, as far as possible, it is based on what they have heard in the courtroom and what the judge has told them. It is very much harder for a single juror to say to the other 11, well this is what joint enterprise is and I know better than the judge so listen to me instead.
Sure. So I'm sat on a jury and evidence is being presented and I think "this sounds like joint enterprise". That hasn't formally been presented but its there. If I sit in the jury room and tell the jurors "I think it sounds like x" is that a crime? When juries can acquit for whatever reason they see fit?
This has certainly put me off serving on a jury. Why on earth would I want to risk going to prison!?
It's not great, but the operating company is still trading.
For all of the political bricks that will be thrown around does the absolutism used by Tories / Reform / SNP / Labour etc actually help? The industry needs stability and isn't getting it. Drill Baby Drill is as unhelpful as don't drill.
We come back to the point
1) make a decision 2) stick to it 3) let people get on doing what you’ve asked them to do
One thing I’ve picked up on is our Government have used outsourcing as an excuse to let them stop and start things and all that does is add on money and lost time.
Once a decision has been made just leave people to get on and implement what you asked them to do
Yep. And the decision should be: Bring up as much oil and gas as is commercially viable Build as much renewables as is commercially viable Train and transition the workforce from fossil to renewable as one declines and the other grows
Thats it. A simple strategy. Do everything here because shutting any of it down means importing it from elsewhere.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
So what happens if a juror already understands concepts like Joint Enterprise? Doesn't need to be naughty and Google it, already has the knowledge?
It doesn't matter. The whole point of juries is that they bring their existing knowledge with them. The judge will explain what they have to decide and what the relevant law is and how to approach the evidence they have heard. And then it's up to them - but, as far as possible, it is based on what they have heard in the courtroom and what the judge has told them. It is very much harder for a single juror to say to the other 11, well this is what joint enterprise is and I know better than the judge so listen to me instead.
He was certainly of the opinion that restricting the right to jury trial was at least a part of the solution. His second part, the Efficiency Review, is still to come. Hopefully he will look to address the multistage problems there.
Having done jury service a couple of months ago, I would be in favour of abolishing jury trials as far as possible. As a retired solicitor I found the whole process immensely frustrating.
In the spirit of "5 whys", why doesn't Starmer see this as a priority? Or worth solving?
Frankly I think we are also suffering from the talent pool that we chose our leaders from being extraordinarily meagre. I can think of a few reasons: * Being a politician is a rubbish job compared to being an executive or media personality. * The media environment favours narcissists and bullshitters * We've had decades of lionizing the private sector and demonizing the pubic sector * Centralisation of power in Westminster means that there are few opportunities to get practice wielding real power on a smaller scale, and gain a reputation for competence, instead the ambitious focus on gaining access to back room in-groups and honing their talent for manipulation and intrigue.
This last is the only one where there is a change to be made which is relatively obvious (to me at least). But even that would be a slow process.
" * We've had decades of lionizing the private sector and demonizing the pubic[sp] sector"
Hmm. I can't ever remember a call to go out on your doorstep and applaud any private sector organisation. I think views of 'the public sector' vary wildly, from the unhealthy idolatry towards the NHS, to less charitable views of general bureaucracy.
And under a (nominally) Conservative government too!
I fear entreaties to give Dyson, Sugar and that tosser plumber guy a round of applause may fall on deaf ears, though the media more than make up for any deficiencies of public fawning.
You know that tosser plumber has started a new plumbing firm but won’t and can’t employ anyone who worked at his old place for legal reasons
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
So what happens if a juror already understands concepts like Joint Enterprise? Doesn't need to be naughty and Google it, already has the knowledge?
It doesn't matter. The whole point of juries is that they bring their existing knowledge with them. The judge will explain what they have to decide and what the relevant law is and how to approach the evidence they have heard. And then it's up to them - but, as far as possible, it is based on what they have heard in the courtroom and what the judge has told them. It is very much harder for a single juror to say to the other 11, well this is what joint enterprise is and I know better than the judge so listen to me instead.
He was certainly of the opinion that restricting the right to jury trial was at least a part of the solution. His second part, the Efficiency Review, is still to come. Hopefully he will look to address the multistage problems there.
Having done jury service a couple of months ago, I would be in favour of abolishing jury trials as far as possible. As a retired solicitor I found the whole process immensely frustrating.
Many other successful democracies (e.g. Germany) seem to able to run fair judicial systems without the routine use of juries. Put our refusal to consider changing this under the "tradition" reason for the insolubility of bottlenecks.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
So what happens if a juror already understands concepts like Joint Enterprise? Doesn't need to be naughty and Google it, already has the knowledge?
It doesn't matter. The whole point of juries is that they bring their existing knowledge with them. The judge will explain what they have to decide and what the relevant law is and how to approach the evidence they have heard. And then it's up to them - but, as far as possible, it is based on what they have heard in the courtroom and what the judge has told them. It is very much harder for a single juror to say to the other 11, well this is what joint enterprise is and I know better than the judge so listen to me instead.
He was certainly of the opinion that restricting the right to jury trial was at least a part of the solution. His second part, the Efficiency Review, is still to come. Hopefully he will look to address the multistage problems there.
A cursory scan of Leveson makes me suspect he is arguing from his own prejudices in replacing the jury with a couple of magistrates (in what he calls a bench trial). Juries are to be removed from minor cases and elsewhere from complex ones.
Recommendation 30: I recommend the creation of a new Division of the Crown Court: the Crown Court Bench Division. All either way offences would be eligible to be tried in the Crown Court Bench Division. Whether the defendant exercises their right to elect a Crown Court hearing or is sent by the magistrates, in every case, at the Plea and Trial Preparation Hearing (PTPH), a judge should make a decision to allocate the case to the Crown Court Bench Division or to the Crown Court with a jury. There would be a presumption of a bench trial for any case which carries a prospective sentence of three years or less. Parliament should set a framework within which the PTPH judge would be required to operate. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686be85d81dd8f70f5de3c1f/35.49_MOJ_Ind_Review_Criminal_Courts_v8b_FINAL_WEB.pdf
Juries are not the rate-limiting step or bottleneck, since jurors are freely available in both senses. We'd still need judges and lawyers and courts, and we have shortages of all of those.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
Yes it's absurd. We cannot afford to jail people for stuff like this. A fine would be appropriate.
He;s not even looking up details about the defendant, he's obviously just googled "joint enterprise" ffsake.
I've never served on a jury but if a lawyer used a legal term (like that one) that I didn't understand, am I just supposed to guess what it means? Is there a way you can ask the judge?
Actually, I am wrong, Looking this up, juries in criminal trials can rely only on the legal guidance given to them by the judge in his summing up (along with the submissions of the prosecution and defence). They can ask for that guidance to be repeated to them during their deliberations, but that is it.
(I think the procedure in (eg) inquests is a bit different.)
Jurors are told they must take the law from the judge, (and not from prosecution or defence lawyers). Arguments about law, or how the judge should express it to the jurors in summing up are conducted in the absence of the jury beforehand. prosecution and defence can both loudly commend to the jury how the law relates to their version of what the facts are. Facts are entirely for the jury, however perverse their decision. The judge often gives a steer as to what a sane finding on certain critical facts may be. Tone of voice is often an indicator.
Incidentally (I don't know the facts of this juror case) I can't see that looking up bits of law on the internet can ever of itself be an offence, any more than possessing and reading a criminal law text book can be an offence.
Judges are increasingly formulaic in their summing up, and increasingly try to agree stuff with the lawyers in advance. They have a mighty volume before them giving outlines of what to say in a multitude of situations.
So the story is mjsreported? It certainly reads as if he got 4 months for doing some extra Internet research. In particular the idea that he admitted reading a story on the guardian on a similar topic feels very harsh to me. I would definitely be tempted to read about a similar case if I were on a jury.
In the spirit of "5 whys", why doesn't Starmer see this as a priority? Or worth solving?
Frankly I think we are also suffering from the talent pool that we chose our leaders from being extraordinarily meagre. I can think of a few reasons: * Being a politician is a rubbish job compared to being an executive or media personality. * The media environment favours narcissists and bullshitters * We've had decades of lionizing the private sector and demonizing the pubic sector * Centralisation of power in Westminster means that there are few opportunities to get practice wielding real power on a smaller scale, and gain a reputation for competence, instead the ambitious focus on gaining access to back room in-groups and honing their talent for manipulation and intrigue.
This last is the only one where there is a change to be made which is relatively obvious (to me at least). But even that would be a slow process.
" * We've had decades of lionizing the private sector and demonizing the pubic[sp] sector"
Hmm. I can't ever remember a call to go out on your doorstep and applaud any private sector organisation. I think views of 'the public sector' vary wildly, from the unhealthy idolatry towards the NHS, to less charitable views of general bureaucracy.
And under a (nominally) Conservative government too!
I fear entreaties to give Dyson, Sugar and that tosser plumber guy a round of applause may fall on deaf ears, though the media more than make up for any deficiencies of public fawning.
You know that tosser plumber has started a new plumbing firm but won’t and can’t employ anyone who worked at his old place for legal reasons
Probably embarassment at having anyone around who has seen him before his numerous cosmetic 'improvements'.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
So what happens if a juror already understands concepts like Joint Enterprise? Doesn't need to be naughty and Google it, already has the knowledge?
It doesn't matter. The whole point of juries is that they bring their existing knowledge with them. The judge will explain what they have to decide and what the relevant law is and how to approach the evidence they have heard. And then it's up to them - but, as far as possible, it is based on what they have heard in the courtroom and what the judge has told them. It is very much harder for a single juror to say to the other 11, well this is what joint enterprise is and I know better than the judge so listen to me instead.
He was certainly of the opinion that restricting the right to jury trial was at least a part of the solution. His second part, the Efficiency Review, is still to come. Hopefully he will look to address the multistage problems there.
Having done jury service a couple of months ago, I would be in favour of abolishing jury trials as far as possible. As a retired solicitor I found the whole process immensely frustrating.
Can you say more?
There is a blanket ban on jurors ever revealing any part of their deliberations so one must tread carefully, but... I did read an interesting blog article the other day
The jury’s ability to properly consider evidence whilst applying the law was considered in the same study in 2010.
It was noted that only 31% of jurors understood the legal directions in the terms used by the judge and there was variation between different courts as to whether judicial directions were fully understood (51 % of jurors in one court thought directions were difficult). 31% improved to 48% with written directions given to the jury which is now common practice.
If only half of a jury are confident of the legal directions given to them by the judge then aren’t legally trained lawyers better judges of the facts?"
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
So what happens if a juror already understands concepts like Joint Enterprise? Doesn't need to be naughty and Google it, already has the knowledge?
It doesn't matter. The whole point of juries is that they bring their existing knowledge with them. The judge will explain what they have to decide and what the relevant law is and how to approach the evidence they have heard. And then it's up to them - but, as far as possible, it is based on what they have heard in the courtroom and what the judge has told them. It is very much harder for a single juror to say to the other 11, well this is what joint enterprise is and I know better than the judge so listen to me instead.
He was certainly of the opinion that restricting the right to jury trial was at least a part of the solution. His second part, the Efficiency Review, is still to come. Hopefully he will look to address the multistage problems there.
Having done jury service a couple of months ago, I would be in favour of abolishing jury trials as far as possible. As a retired solicitor I found the whole process immensely frustrating.
Can you say more?
There is a blanket ban on jurors ever revealing any part of their deliberations so one must tread carefully, but... I did read an interesting blog article the other day
The jury’s ability to properly consider evidence whilst applying the law was considered in the same study in 2010.
It was noted that only 31% of jurors understood the legal directions in the terms used by the judge and there was variation between different courts as to whether judicial directions were fully understood (51 % of jurors in one court thought directions were difficult). 31% improved to 48% with written directions given to the jury which is now common practice.
If only half of a jury are confident of the legal directions given to them by the judge then aren’t legally trained lawyers better judges of the facts?"
One might suggest that those explaining the legal directions are not doing a very good job.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
Yes it's absurd. We cannot afford to jail people for stuff like this. A fine would be appropriate.
He;s not even looking up details about the defendant, he's obviously just googled "joint enterprise" ffsake.
I've never served on a jury but if a lawyer used a legal term (like that one) that I didn't understand, am I just supposed to guess what it means? Is there a way you can ask the judge?
Actually, I am wrong, Looking this up, juries in criminal trials can rely only on the legal guidance given to them by the judge in his summing up (along with the submissions of the prosecution and defence). They can ask for that guidance to be repeated to them during their deliberations, but that is it.
(I think the procedure in (eg) inquests is a bit different.)
Jurors are told they must take the law from the judge, (and not from prosecution or defence lawyers). Arguments about law, or how the judge should express it to the jurors in summing up are conducted in the absence of the jury beforehand. prosecution and defence can both loudly commend to the jury how the law relates to their version of what the facts are. Facts are entirely for the jury, however perverse their decision. The judge often gives a steer as to what a sane finding on certain critical facts may be. Tone of voice is often an indicator.
Incidentally (I don't know the facts of this juror case) I can't see that looking up bits of law on the internet can ever of itself be an offence, any more than possessing and reading a criminal law text book can be an offence.
Judges are increasingly formulaic in their summing up, and increasingly try to agree stuff with the lawyers in advance. They have a mighty volume before them giving outlines of what to say in a multitude of situations.
So the story is misreported? It certainly reads as if he got 4 months for doing some extra Internet research. In particular the idea that he admitted reading a story on the guardian on a similar topic feels very harsh to me. I would definitely be tempted to read about a similar case if I were on a jury.
No, I think it was accurately reported: ..Richards had previously pleaded guilty to being a juror conducting unauthorised research and of being a juror disclosing prohibited information to other jury members..
I think the point here is that, by sharing his own research with other jury members, he was potentially misleading the entire jury, which is what halted the trial. We all know how unreliable information found on the internet can be, for pretty well any purpose. It's no different here, hence the very strict rules.
Had he kept it to himself, the issue would never have arisen in the first place.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
So what happens if a juror already understands concepts like Joint Enterprise? Doesn't need to be naughty and Google it, already has the knowledge?
It doesn't matter. The whole point of juries is that they bring their existing knowledge with them. The judge will explain what they have to decide and what the relevant law is and how to approach the evidence they have heard. And then it's up to them - but, as far as possible, it is based on what they have heard in the courtroom and what the judge has told them. It is very much harder for a single juror to say to the other 11, well this is what joint enterprise is and I know better than the judge so listen to me instead.
He was certainly of the opinion that restricting the right to jury trial was at least a part of the solution. His second part, the Efficiency Review, is still to come. Hopefully he will look to address the multistage problems there.
Having done jury service a couple of months ago, I would be in favour of abolishing jury trials as far as possible. As a retired solicitor I found the whole process immensely frustrating.
In the spirit of "5 whys", why doesn't Starmer see this as a priority? Or worth solving?
Frankly I think we are also suffering from the talent pool that we chose our leaders from being extraordinarily meagre. I can think of a few reasons: * Being a politician is a rubbish job compared to being an executive or media personality. * The media environment favours narcissists and bullshitters * We've had decades of lionizing the private sector and demonizing the pubic sector * Centralisation of power in Westminster means that there are few opportunities to get practice wielding real power on a smaller scale, and gain a reputation for competence, instead the ambitious focus on gaining access to back room in-groups and honing their talent for manipulation and intrigue.
This last is the only one where there is a change to be made which is relatively obvious (to me at least). But even that would be a slow process.
" * We've had decades of lionizing the private sector and demonizing the pubic[sp] sector"
Hmm. I can't ever remember a call to go out on your doorstep and applaud any private sector organisation. I think views of 'the public sector' vary wildly, from the unhealthy idolatry towards the NHS, to less charitable views of general bureaucracy.
And under a (nominally) Conservative government too!
I fear entreaties to give Dyson, Sugar and that tosser plumber guy a round of applause may fall on deaf ears, though the media more than make up for any deficiencies of public fawning.
You know that tosser plumber has started a new plumbing firm but won’t and can’t employ anyone who worked at his old place for legal reasons
I thought that tw@t had pissed off abroad!! After making a killing on selling his company?
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
So what happens if a juror already understands concepts like Joint Enterprise? Doesn't need to be naughty and Google it, already has the knowledge?
It doesn't matter. The whole point of juries is that they bring their existing knowledge with them. The judge will explain what they have to decide and what the relevant law is and how to approach the evidence they have heard. And then it's up to them - but, as far as possible, it is based on what they have heard in the courtroom and what the judge has told them. It is very much harder for a single juror to say to the other 11, well this is what joint enterprise is and I know better than the judge so listen to me instead.
He was certainly of the opinion that restricting the right to jury trial was at least a part of the solution. His second part, the Efficiency Review, is still to come. Hopefully he will look to address the multistage problems there.
Having done jury service a couple of months ago, I would be in favour of abolishing jury trials as far as possible. As a retired solicitor I found the whole process immensely frustrating.
Can you say more?
There is a blanket ban on jurors ever revealing any part of their deliberations so one must tread carefully, but... I did read an interesting blog article the other day
The jury’s ability to properly consider evidence whilst applying the law was considered in the same study in 2010.
It was noted that only 31% of jurors understood the legal directions in the terms used by the judge and there was variation between different courts as to whether judicial directions were fully understood (51 % of jurors in one court thought directions were difficult). 31% improved to 48% with written directions given to the jury which is now common practice.
If only half of a jury are confident of the legal directions given to them by the judge then aren’t legally trained lawyers better judges of the facts?"
One might suggest that those explaining the legal directions are not doing a very good job.
The directions given in the cases I saw were exemplary. The problem in the end is that juries are not being asked "just to decide the facts" - they are being asked to decide what legal tests are or are not met on the facts as they find them. The test for self defence in an assault case for example, even distinguishing correctly between the objective and subjective elements of the defence is beyond many people.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
Yes it's absurd. We cannot afford to jail people for stuff like this. A fine would be appropriate.
He;s not even looking up details about the defendant, he's obviously just googled "joint enterprise" ffsake.
I've never served on a jury but if a lawyer used a legal term (like that one) that I didn't understand, am I just supposed to guess what it means? Is there a way you can ask the judge?
Actually, I am wrong, Looking this up, juries in criminal trials can rely only on the legal guidance given to them by the judge in his summing up (along with the submissions of the prosecution and defence). They can ask for that guidance to be repeated to them during their deliberations, but that is it.
(I think the procedure in (eg) inquests is a bit different.)
Jurors are told they must take the law from the judge, (and not from prosecution or defence lawyers). Arguments about law, or how the judge should express it to the jurors in summing up are conducted in the absence of the jury beforehand. prosecution and defence can both loudly commend to the jury how the law relates to their version of what the facts are. Facts are entirely for the jury, however perverse their decision. The judge often gives a steer as to what a sane finding on certain critical facts may be. Tone of voice is often an indicator.
Incidentally (I don't know the facts of this juror case) I can't see that looking up bits of law on the internet can ever of itself be an offence, any more than possessing and reading a criminal law text book can be an offence.
Judges are increasingly formulaic in their summing up, and increasingly try to agree stuff with the lawyers in advance. They have a mighty volume before them giving outlines of what to say in a multitude of situations.
So the story is misreported? It certainly reads as if he got 4 months for doing some extra Internet research. In particular the idea that he admitted reading a story on the guardian on a similar topic feels very harsh to me. I would definitely be tempted to read about a similar case if I were on a jury.
No, I think it was accurately reported: ..Richards had previously pleaded guilty to being a juror conducting unauthorised research and of being a juror disclosing prohibited information to other jury members..
I think the point here is that, by sharing his own research with other jury members, he was potentially misleading the entire jury, which is what halted the trial. We all know how unreliable information found on the internet can be, for pretty well any purpose. It's no different here, hence the very strict rules.
Had he kept it to himself, the issue would never have arisen in the first place.
But say he had read that article before being selected for jury duty. Then he would have been fine to share the unreliable information?
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
Yes it's absurd. We cannot afford to jail people for stuff like this. A fine would be appropriate.
He;s not even looking up details about the defendant, he's obviously just googled "joint enterprise" ffsake.
I've never served on a jury but if a lawyer used a legal term (like that one) that I didn't understand, am I just supposed to guess what it means? Is there a way you can ask the judge?
Actually, I am wrong, Looking this up, juries in criminal trials can rely only on the legal guidance given to them by the judge in his summing up (along with the submissions of the prosecution and defence). They can ask for that guidance to be repeated to them during their deliberations, but that is it.
(I think the procedure in (eg) inquests is a bit different.)
Jurors are told they must take the law from the judge, (and not from prosecution or defence lawyers). Arguments about law, or how the judge should express it to the jurors in summing up are conducted in the absence of the jury beforehand. prosecution and defence can both loudly commend to the jury how the law relates to their version of what the facts are. Facts are entirely for the jury, however perverse their decision. The judge often gives a steer as to what a sane finding on certain critical facts may be. Tone of voice is often an indicator.
Incidentally (I don't know the facts of this juror case) I can't see that looking up bits of law on the internet can ever of itself be an offence, any more than possessing and reading a criminal law text book can be an offence.
Judges are increasingly formulaic in their summing up, and increasingly try to agree stuff with the lawyers in advance. They have a mighty volume before them giving outlines of what to say in a multitude of situations.
So the story is misreported? It certainly reads as if he got 4 months for doing some extra Internet research. In particular the idea that he admitted reading a story on the guardian on a similar topic feels very harsh to me. I would definitely be tempted to read about a similar case if I were on a jury.
No, I think it was accurately reported: ..Richards had previously pleaded guilty to being a juror conducting unauthorised research and of being a juror disclosing prohibited information to other jury members..
I think the point here is that, by sharing his own research with other jury members, he was potentially misleading the entire jury, which is what halted the trial. We all know how unreliable information found on the internet can be, for pretty well any purpose. It's no different here, hence the very strict rules.
Had he kept it to himself, the issue would never have arisen in the first place.
But say he had read that article before being selected for jury duty. Then he would have been fine to share the unreliable information?
Yes. As Cyclefree pointed out earlier, jurors bring all manner of prior knowledge to the trial.
Point is that he was sharing his interpretation that he'd researched after the judge's summing up.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
So what happens if a juror already understands concepts like Joint Enterprise? Doesn't need to be naughty and Google it, already has the knowledge?
It doesn't matter. The whole point of juries is that they bring their existing knowledge with them. The judge will explain what they have to decide and what the relevant law is and how to approach the evidence they have heard. And then it's up to them - but, as far as possible, it is based on what they have heard in the courtroom and what the judge has told them. It is very much harder for a single juror to say to the other 11, well this is what joint enterprise is and I know better than the judge so listen to me instead.
He was certainly of the opinion that restricting the right to jury trial was at least a part of the solution. His second part, the Efficiency Review, is still to come. Hopefully he will look to address the multistage problems there.
A cursory scan of Leveson makes me suspect he is arguing from his own prejudices in replacing the jury with a couple of magistrates (in what he calls a bench trial). Juries are to be removed from minor cases and elsewhere from complex ones.
Recommendation 30: I recommend the creation of a new Division of the Crown Court: the Crown Court Bench Division. All either way offences would be eligible to be tried in the Crown Court Bench Division. Whether the defendant exercises their right to elect a Crown Court hearing or is sent by the magistrates, in every case, at the Plea and Trial Preparation Hearing (PTPH), a judge should make a decision to allocate the case to the Crown Court Bench Division or to the Crown Court with a jury. There would be a presumption of a bench trial for any case which carries a prospective sentence of three years or less. Parliament should set a framework within which the PTPH judge would be required to operate. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686be85d81dd8f70f5de3c1f/35.49_MOJ_Ind_Review_Criminal_Courts_v8b_FINAL_WEB.pdf
Juries are not the rate-limiting step or bottleneck, since jurors are freely available in both senses. We'd still need judges and lawyers and courts, and we have shortages of all of those.
Anyone who's served as a juror recently will attest to that, acquaintances who've done jury service recently have barely been used, if at all. My recent experience is that the inefficiency is with the court processes, all trooped in then trooped out again because they'd forgotten the witness wanted a screen, see you again in 2 days due to conflicting commitments. Judge has fallen ill, case abandoned for retrial with just the opening statements heard. Finally seated for morning session by 11am, after lunch by 2.30pm, at best as a juror you're seated in court for 4 hours/day.
I do think it is criminal that Starmer appears uninterested in fixing this issue, but I can kinda understand the constraints he is operating under.
He has, probably correctly, decided that his re-election relies on improving the NHS. As long as everything else avoids outright collapse and obvious disaster, it matters little. And several disasters can likely be papered over if the NHS is improving.
He also knows that he is severely resource-constrained due to the dire state of the public finances that he inherited, and the taxation promises he had made to win election. So every spare penny must be directed to the NHS.
Add in a focus on the small boats in reaction to Reform's surge and you have the essence of the Starmer Ministry. It strikes me as a very reductionist way of running a government, stripping back the job of government to core essentials to win re-election - which, as the Blairites will not tire of telling you, is all that matters.
It is so very uninspiring. It's almost as though, in his desperation to repudiate everything about Corbyn's leadership, Starmer has set out to strip away all hope for anything better, any scintilla of ambition, and every cause for joy.
In better news, this year's Christmas cake is now in the oven. With the ongoing disappearance of De Kuypers Cherry Brandy, the spirit of choice for 2025 is Frangelico.
Very interesting header - thanks. This is a big issue on my radar, particularly delays on trials of serious motoring offences; justice delayed is justice denied. Plus reactive rather than proactive governance - "No, you can't have a zebra crossing. Not enough 5 year olds are in wheelchairs yet."
My one question is on completeness of stats - I want enough to tell if the trend has changed, It's very much a problem like the NHS - questions around both efficiency of process and starvation of resources, filtered through increasing complexity and scope. Then in the Courts combined with the need to alternative dispositions, recognising that pandering to the rabid Daily Mail "Moar prison! Moar ! Moar ! Moar !" lobby, and their political hangers-on, is both less effective and more expensive.
Another one on the long list where we need investment to get over the innherited bulge and a project which will take a decade to feed through.
In the spirit of "5 whys", why doesn't Starmer see this as a priority? Or worth solving?
Frankly I think we are also suffering from the talent pool that we chose our leaders from being extraordinarily meagre. I can think of a few reasons: * Being a politician is a rubbish job compared to being an executive or media personality. * The media environment favours narcissists and bullshitters * We've had decades of lionizing the private sector and demonizing the pubic sector * Centralisation of power in Westminster means that there are few opportunities to get practice wielding real power on a smaller scale, and gain a reputation for competence, instead the ambitious focus on gaining access to back room in-groups and honing their talent for manipulation and intrigue.
This last is the only one where there is a change to be made which is relatively obvious (to me at least). But even that would be a slow process.
" * We've had decades of lionizing the private sector and demonizing the pubic[sp] sector"
Hmm. I can't ever remember a call to go out on your doorstep and applaud any private sector organisation. I think views of 'the public sector' vary wildly, from the unhealthy idolatry towards the NHS, to less charitable views of general bureaucracy.
And under a (nominally) Conservative government too!
I fear entreaties to give Dyson, Sugar and that tosser plumber guy a round of applause may fall on deaf ears, though the media more than make up for any deficiencies of public fawning.
You know that tosser plumber has started a new plumbing firm but won’t and can’t employ anyone who worked at his old place for legal reasons
I thought that tw@t had pissed off abroad!! After making a killing on selling his company?
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
How far would a serious restriction in jury trials help? The Anglosphere is I think unusual in the scope of jury trials, which is only defensible if we actually provide enough jury trial facilities,
It wouldn't help in the slightest. It just creates yet more problems and finishes the destruction of a system worth cherishing.
Surely jury trials take longer than non-jury trials? You have to instruct people and stuff like that. Doesn't that slow things down...
Do you really think it wont have any benefit on the backlog, or is it just that you'd rather keep jury trials?
Without jury trials you wouldn't have defence barristers throwing out a load of chaff for hours on end in an attempt to befuddle the jury into an incorrect Not Guilty verdict.
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
How far would a serious restriction in jury trials help? The Anglosphere is I think unusual in the scope of jury trials, which is only defensible if we actually provide enough jury trial facilities,
It wouldn't help in the slightest. It just creates yet more problems and finishes the destruction of a system worth cherishing.
Surely jury trials take longer than non-jury trials? You have to instruct people and stuff like that. Doesn't that slow things down...
Do you really think it wont have any benefit on the backlog, or is it just that you'd rather keep jury trials?
Without jury trials you wouldn't have defence barristers throwing out a load of chaff for hours on end in an attempt to befuddle the jury into an incorrect Not Guilty verdict.
While the prosecution doesn't do that for a guilty verdict?
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
How far would a serious restriction in jury trials help? The Anglosphere is I think unusual in the scope of jury trials, which is only defensible if we actually provide enough jury trial facilities,
It wouldn't help in the slightest. It just creates yet more problems and finishes the destruction of a system worth cherishing.
Surely jury trials take longer than non-jury trials? You have to instruct people and stuff like that. Doesn't that slow things down...
Do you really think it wont have any benefit on the backlog, or is it just that you'd rather keep jury trials?
Without jury trials you wouldn't have defence barristers throwing out a load of chaff for hours on end in an attempt to befuddle the jury into an incorrect Not Guilty verdict.
The big advantage of jury trials surely is that they can deliver 'perverse' verdicts in the view of the 'great and good' but just in the view of ordinary people.
Of course you're right, Ms Cyclefree. But the apparently impossible question is... how to fix it?
We are in a society that likes penny-pinching, because it assumes that frees up pennies for sweeties now. As for future us, they're in the future, so serves them right.
How far would a serious restriction in jury trials help? The Anglosphere is I think unusual in the scope of jury trials, which is only defensible if we actually provide enough jury trial facilities,
It wouldn't help in the slightest. It just creates yet more problems and finishes the destruction of a system worth cherishing.
Surely jury trials take longer than non-jury trials? You have to instruct people and stuff like that. Doesn't that slow things down...
Do you really think it wont have any benefit on the backlog, or is it just that you'd rather keep jury trials?
Without jury trials you wouldn't have defence barristers throwing out a load of chaff for hours on end in an attempt to befuddle the jury into an incorrect Not Guilty verdict.
The big advantage of jury trials surely is that they can deliver 'perverse' verdicts in the view of the 'great and good' but just in the view of ordinary people.
Jury nullification is mainly confined to Hollywood.
I do think it is criminal that Starmer appears uninterested in fixing this issue, but I can kinda understand the constraints he is operating under.
He has, probably correctly, decided that his re-election relies on improving the NHS. As long as everything else avoids outright collapse and obvious disaster, it matters little. And several disasters can likely be papered over if the NHS is improving.
He also knows that he is severely resource-constrained due to the dire state of the public finances that he inherited, and the taxation promises he had made to win election. So every spare penny must be directed to the NHS.
Add in a focus on the small boats in reaction to Reform's surge and you have the essence of the Starmer Ministry. It strikes me as a very reductionist way of running a government, stripping back the job of government to core essentials to win re-election - which, as the Blairites will not tire of telling you, is all that matters.
It is so very uninspiring. It's almost as though, in his desperation to repudiate everything about Corbyn's leadership, Starmer has set out to strip away all hope for anything better, any scintilla of ambition, and every cause for joy.
To be fair, they are spending quite a lot of money with the aim of speeding up the processing of asylum applications (another bottleneck), and clearing the backlog. Which in turn will empty some of the overpriced hotel accommodation.
This one is arguably more the responsibility of the minister (Lammy) who is either not sufficiently on top of this part of his brief (he's also Deputy PM), or is insufficiently persuasive in negotiating with the Treasury.
I do think it is criminal that Starmer appears uninterested in fixing this issue, but I can kinda understand the constraints he is operating under.
He has, probably correctly, decided that his re-election relies on improving the NHS. As long as everything else avoids outright collapse and obvious disaster, it matters little. And several disasters can likely be papered over if the NHS is improving.
He also knows that he is severely resource-constrained due to the dire state of the public finances that he inherited, and the taxation promises he had made to win election. So every spare penny must be directed to the NHS.
Add in a focus on the small boats in reaction to Reform's surge and you have the essence of the Starmer Ministry. It strikes me as a very reductionist way of running a government, stripping back the job of government to core essentials to win re-election - which, as the Blairites will not tire of telling you, is all that matters.
It is so very uninspiring. It's almost as though, in his desperation to repudiate everything about Corbyn's leadership, Starmer has set out to strip away all hope for anything better, any scintilla of ambition, and every cause for joy.
To be fair, they are spending quite a lot of money with the aim of speeding up the processing of asylum applications (another bottleneck), and clearing the backlog. Which in turn will empty some of the overpriced hotel accommodation.
This one is arguably more the responsibility of the minister (Lammy) who is either not sufficiently on top of this part of his brief (he's also Deputy PM), or is insufficiently persuasive in negotiating with the Treasury.
The asylum bottleneck has improved - but the last numbers I took notice of were that whilst the backlog is ~20% iirc down over 12 months (which TBF is a further reduction of the same order as Sunak & co achieved over the previous 12 months), there has also been a shifting of a big chunk of the backlog to the Appeals stage. That last is something to do with the Appeals Industry.
Lord Gove of Torry, a place that smells fishy in Aberdeen, even when Gove isn't passing through.
Having singlehandedly resolved the European Union question, the UK fishing industry, education, the justice system and COVID PPE procurement, I can't think of a more deserving candidate.
I do think it is criminal that Starmer appears uninterested in fixing this issue, but I can kinda understand the constraints he is operating under.
He has, probably correctly, decided that his re-election relies on improving the NHS. As long as everything else avoids outright collapse and obvious disaster, it matters little. And several disasters can likely be papered over if the NHS is improving.
He also knows that he is severely resource-constrained due to the dire state of the public finances that he inherited, and the taxation promises he had made to win election. So every spare penny must be directed to the NHS.
Add in a focus on the small boats in reaction to Reform's surge and you have the essence of the Starmer Ministry. It strikes me as a very reductionist way of running a government, stripping back the job of government to core essentials to win re-election - which, as the Blairites will not tire of telling you, is all that matters.
It is so very uninspiring. It's almost as though, in his desperation to repudiate everything about Corbyn's leadership, Starmer has set out to strip away all hope for anything better, any scintilla of ambition, and every cause for joy.
To be fair, they are spending quite a lot of money with the aim of speeding up the processing of asylum applications (another bottleneck), and clearing the backlog. Which in turn will empty some of the overpriced hotel accommodation.
This one is arguably more the responsibility of the minister (Lammy) who is either not sufficiently on top of this part of his brief (he's also Deputy PM), or is insufficiently persuasive in negotiating with the Treasury.
The asylum bottleneck has improved - but the last numbers I took notice of were that whilst the backlog is ~20% iirc down over 12 months (which TBF is a further reduction of the same order as Sunak & co achieved over the previous 12 months), there has also been a shifting of a big chunk of the backlog to the Appeals stage. That last is something to do with the Appeals Industry.
It's potentially soluble before the next election, which is presumably why it takes priority.
I get the impression that the satisfactory rebuilding of the criminal justice system will run well beyond that.
The one Things One and Two went to back in the day is now £5.50 per morning.
It's a correct place to start, as is rolling out SureStart-alike - which by the end of this term is one thing that will be noticeable in many less well off areas aka Labour/Reform battlegrounds.
The slashing of SureStart was one of the most egregious things done by Cameron & Co.
This seems like a ridiculous sentence for a juror who seemed to just want to understand more about the case . Prisons are full and yet they’re putting people in jail for this .
At least 5 days of trial court wasted. Probably at least £100k. Preparation work for a murder probably several multiples of that depending on the complexity of the case. Justice delayed for the best part of a year and more court time needed which delays other cases. For murder, possibly the additional cost of having the accused on remand for even longer.
This is made crystal clear to every jury. What they read on the internet is not necessarily right and it is not evidence in the case. It cannot be allowed to influence their decisions. It sounds relatively innocent but the consequences are significant.
Come on, the sentence is so stiff because the juror has basically trod on the court's toes. Burglary, fraud, people razzing away from the coppers at 70 down a residential road, shoplifters & nonces aren't nearly dealt with as relatively harshly. But because the juror was directly potentially mucking up the judges' own work the sentence is completely out of whack because he's angered the judge. Now the judge might be very angry with all this but he shouldn't be sentencing based on that anger, which is what I think he's done here.
Yes it's absurd. We cannot afford to jail people for stuff like this. A fine would be appropriate.
He;s not even looking up details about the defendant, he's obviously just googled "joint enterprise" ffsake.
I've never served on a jury but if a lawyer used a legal term (like that one) that I didn't understand, am I just supposed to guess what it means? Is there a way you can ask the judge?
Actually, I am wrong, Looking this up, juries in criminal trials can rely only on the legal guidance given to them by the judge in his summing up (along with the submissions of the prosecution and defence). They can ask for that guidance to be repeated to them during their deliberations, but that is it.
(I think the procedure in (eg) inquests is a bit different.)
Jurors are told they must take the law from the judge, (and not from prosecution or defence lawyers). Arguments about law, or how the judge should express it to the jurors in summing up are conducted in the absence of the jury beforehand. prosecution and defence can both loudly commend to the jury how the law relates to their version of what the facts are. Facts are entirely for the jury, however perverse their decision. The judge often gives a steer as to what a sane finding on certain critical facts may be. Tone of voice is often an indicator.
Incidentally (I don't know the facts of this juror case) I can't see that looking up bits of law on the internet can ever of itself be an offence, any more than possessing and reading a criminal law text book can be an offence.
Judges are increasingly formulaic in their summing up, and increasingly try to agree stuff with the lawyers in advance. They have a mighty volume before them giving outlines of what to say in a multitude of situations.
So the story is misreported? It certainly reads as if he got 4 months for doing some extra Internet research. In particular the idea that he admitted reading a story on the guardian on a similar topic feels very harsh to me. I would definitely be tempted to read about a similar case if I were on a jury.
No, I think it was accurately reported: ..Richards had previously pleaded guilty to being a juror conducting unauthorised research and of being a juror disclosing prohibited information to other jury members..
I think the point here is that, by sharing his own research with other jury members, he was potentially misleading the entire jury, which is what halted the trial. We all know how unreliable information found on the internet can be, for pretty well any purpose. It's no different here, hence the very strict rules.
Had he kept it to himself, the issue would never have arisen in the first place.
But say he had read that article before being selected for jury duty. Then he would have been fine to share the unreliable information?
Yes. As Cyclefree pointed out earlier, jurors bring all manner of prior knowledge to the trial.
Point is that he was sharing his interpretation that he'd researched after the judge's summing up.
Okay, then yes it is absurd that we are sending someone to prison for this.. And absurd that we are happy for prior misinformation to be relevant but post misinformation to be worthy of imprisonment.
Comments
Why won't the ex DPP fix this?
Governing is difficult and Downing Street appears to be under siege at the moment, beset by issues
The "we have no money" mentality where due to arbitrary rules criminal justice costs money we don't have but crime is free
The Reeves budget should announce a 10 year programme to invest out of the hole. Instead we will have a tax on wheelchairs and cuts deep enough to throw the real economy recession into actual statistical no arguing this is a recession.
We're now discussing why Osbourn and his successors were wrong to cut the growth in public spending...
We evidently aren't a really society which penny pinches, other than very selectively. And we usually select the wrong things to penny pinch.
For most of us, that remains a mere aspiration.
The jury must surely be out on that.
And, yes, very interesting article. And I mean that in a disinterested way.
Then Big Bang happened, the US banks took over the UK merchant banks and began to pay megabucks for the people to work there (or at "their" bank, rather than another one). City salaries skyrocketed and hence any sensible grad, Oxbridge or not, would likely try to get a job in finance, rather than become a doctor or a civil servant, etc.
Looking this up, juries in criminal trials can rely only on the legal guidance given to them by the judge in his summing up (along with the submissions of the prosecution and defence).
They can ask for that guidance to be repeated to them during their deliberations, but that is it.
(I think the procedure in (eg) inquests is a bit different.)
There's a hefty and enduring gap between what the government gets in taxes and what it spends.
There are two honourable ways out of that. One is to accept that the state should really do less for us. (Not other people, us). The other is that we should pay more. (Again, not other people, us.)
Trouble is, those are routes to electoral defeat, and those routes have very few bottlenecks. So, instead, we tend to vote for dishonourable answers;
1 Borrowing the gap (fine if future us will be significantly richer than current us, which looks heroic right now)
2 Selling stuff off and spending the one-off receipts as ongoing expenditure (something something MacMillan something family silver)
3 Pretending things and people cost less than they really do (you can buck the employment market for a bit, but in the long run you get the quality and quantity of staff you are willing to pay for)
4 Extending maintenance cycles (fine until things actually fall apart).
We know that borrowing risks stealing from the future. First problem is so do options 2-4. Second problem is that future seems to have become the present.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gw8qpyvqdo
Whether anyone with the power to do anything about it has been remotely influenced or persuaded or even read anything I've written on here I doubt. Yes I'm grateful that others write about the same topics from a different perspective and/or think the subject worth talking about.
Occasionally I just long for some action though.
Chatbots Are Pushing Sanctioned Russian Propaganda
ChatGPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, and Grok are serving users propaganda from Russian-backed media when asked about the invasion of Ukraine, new research finds.
https://www.wired.com/story/chatbots-are-pushing-sanctioned-russian-propaganda/
(It was also a rare case of a judgment jointly of the SC and the Privy Council).
The little window of guaranteed profit I mentioned earlier has closed, but hopefully a few here had a little on.
And then working out what spending has decent ROI, versus that which really doesn't.
The prosecution is presenting evidence which, if accepted by the jury, should be sufficient to convict (the judge will step in to end the trial if the evidence, even if accepted, would be insufficient).
The defence is there to provide reasons why elements of the prosecution case shouldn't be accepted such that there is reasonable doubt that a conviction would be safe.
A misconception is that acquittal of a person who did in fact do the crime is necessarily a "miscarriage of justice". It isn't - the system is very specifically set up on the basis we're much more concerned about Type I errors (wrongful conviction) than Type II errors (acquittal of someone who is in fact guilty). We're prepared to tolerate a level of the latter to ensure there's a strong burden on the state to gather sufficient evidence before depriving someone of their liberty.
Acquittal of a person who is in fact guilty clearly denies justice to victims. However, more widely it upholds justice by reinforcing the point you can't be deprived of your liberty based on mere suspicion.
[AI is changing things massively, I don't underestimate that, but it's capacity and limitations should always be remembered].
Politicians tend not to have that patience, which is partly why I noted the rapid turnover of Justice Secretaries upthread.
The only one who stayed in post long enough that they might have made a positive difference was... Grayling.
(And also, I think you might underestimate your influence.)
My Jenny-come-lately Cambridge College is over 150 years old. The British Army is 350 years old, depending on when you start counting. The Church of England, 450 years (same Ts and C's). All institutions that were around long before me, and intend to be around long after me. It ties in with that old Tory thing of inheritance as a duty.
High finance seems to think it's doing well with a ten year horizon. No wonder so much of the country gets sold off for parts.
Incidentally (I don't know the facts of this juror case) I can't see that looking up bits of law on the internet can ever of itself be an offence, any more than possessing and reading a criminal law text book can be an offence.
Judges are increasingly formulaic in their summing up, and increasingly try to agree stuff with the lawyers in advance. They have a mighty volume before them giving outlines of what to say in a multitude of situations.
PrinceAndrew Windsor for the LOLs.He was certainly of the opinion that restricting the right to jury trial was at least a part of the solution. His second part, the Efficiency Review, is still to come. Hopefully he will look to address the multistage problems there.
But there’s not enough space on the internet for to me list all the people I would pass Bills of Attainder against.
Poliitics is the big one, I think. In a democracy, it is difficult to justify to an unintelligent population why money should be spent on the unsexy resolution of bottlenecks rather than highly visible stuff. More lawyers - boo, More police - yay!
Then there is tradition. This is how we've always done things, so this is how we'll carry on doing it, even if it doesn't really work in the modern era.
An then self-interest. Those that are doing well out of the current system are not going to be especially keen to change it.
These are the issues that we need to address.
Austerity and spending cuts are the only way out and if that means the state does less and life expectancy falls by a couple of years then so be it.
The justice system mailaise is the same. It's endless recourse to appeals, judicial reviews and poor quality lower court judgements that gum up the system. How many immigration tribunals come up with completely insane rulings which then get overturned on appeal?
The bottleneck is the low quality of the judiciary not funding. If lower court justices got the rulings right first time out instead of letting all of the criminals walk free and illegal immigrants evade deportation there would be much more bandwidth because higher courts wouldn't waste endless time and resource overturning those insane judgements in turn releasing more bandwidth for trials.
No, it's time to do more for less just like the rest of the country. Let's start with making sure judges are making correct rulings and not having them constantly overturned by higher courts before putting more money in. If that means remedial training for the ones that keep getting it wrong or just pensioning them off then that's also an option.
Sky News
@SkyNews
BREAKING: Oil and gas company Petrofac files for administration
@MarkKleinmanSky
has the latest.
http://trib.al/kdXA2Dr
https://x.com/SkyNews/status/1982706652777197984
For all of the political bricks that will be thrown around does the absolutism used by Tories / Reform / SNP / Labour etc actually help? The industry needs stability and isn't getting it. Drill Baby Drill is as unhelpful as don't drill.
1) make a decision
2) stick to it
3) let people get on doing what you’ve asked them to do
One thing I’ve picked up on is our Government have used outsourcing as an excuse to let them stop and start things and all that does is add on money and lost time.
Once a decision has been made just leave people to get on and implement what you asked them to do
Do you really think it wont have any benefit on the backlog, or is it just that you'd rather keep jury trials?
Why on earth would I want to risk going to prison!?
Bring up as much oil and gas as is commercially viable
Build as much renewables as is commercially viable
Train and transition the workforce from fossil to renewable as one declines and the other grows
Thats it. A simple strategy. Do everything here because shutting any of it down means importing it from elsewhere.
Recommendation 30: I recommend the creation of a new Division of the Crown Court: the Crown Court Bench Division. All either way offences would be eligible to be tried in the Crown Court Bench Division. Whether the defendant exercises their right to elect a Crown Court hearing or is sent by the magistrates, in every case, at the Plea and Trial Preparation Hearing (PTPH), a judge should make a decision to allocate the case to the Crown Court Bench Division or to the Crown Court with a jury. There would be a presumption of a bench trial for any case which carries a prospective sentence of three years or less. Parliament should set a framework within which the PTPH judge would be required to operate.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/686be85d81dd8f70f5de3c1f/35.49_MOJ_Ind_Review_Criminal_Courts_v8b_FINAL_WEB.pdf
Juries are not the rate-limiting step or bottleneck, since jurors are freely available in both senses. We'd still need judges and lawyers and courts, and we have shortages of all of those.
In particular the idea that he admitted reading a story on the guardian on a similar topic feels very harsh to me.
I would definitely be tempted to read about a similar case if I were on a jury.
https://www.barcouncil.org.uk/resource/guest-blog-how-will-restricting-jury-trial-and-reducing-jury-numbers-affect-the-delivery-of-justice.html
in which I was struck by this passage:
"Understanding the law
The jury’s ability to properly consider evidence whilst applying the law was considered in the same study in 2010.
It was noted that only 31% of jurors understood the legal directions in the terms used by the judge and there was variation between different courts as to whether judicial directions were fully understood (51 % of jurors in one court thought directions were difficult). 31% improved to 48% with written directions given to the jury which is now common practice.
If only half of a jury are confident of the legal directions given to them by the judge then aren’t legally trained lawyers better judges of the facts?"
..Richards had previously pleaded guilty to being a juror conducting unauthorised research and of being a juror disclosing prohibited information to other jury members..
I think the point here is that, by sharing his own research with other jury members, he was potentially misleading the entire jury, which is what halted the trial.
We all know how unreliable information found on the internet can be, for pretty well any purpose. It's no different here, hence the very strict rules.
Had he kept it to himself, the issue would never have arisen in the first place.
Then he would have been fine to share the unreliable information?
As Cyclefree pointed out earlier, jurors bring all manner of prior knowledge to the trial.
Point is that he was sharing his interpretation that he'd researched after the judge's summing up.
My recent experience is that the inefficiency is with the court processes, all trooped in then trooped out again because they'd forgotten the witness wanted a screen, see you again in 2 days due to conflicting commitments.
Judge has fallen ill, case abandoned for retrial with just the opening statements heard.
Finally seated for morning session by 11am, after lunch by 2.30pm, at best as a juror you're seated in court for 4 hours/day.
How many children do they have, to be spending over twenty quid every day on breakfast?
The Labour Party
@UKLabour
·
1h
Labour is rolling out free breakfast clubs, helping children start the day ready to learn and saving parents up to £450 a month.
https://x.com/UKLabour/status/1982757848879669698
He has, probably correctly, decided that his re-election relies on improving the NHS. As long as everything else avoids outright collapse and obvious disaster, it matters little. And several disasters can likely be papered over if the NHS is improving.
He also knows that he is severely resource-constrained due to the dire state of the public finances that he inherited, and the taxation promises he had made to win election. So every spare penny must be directed to the NHS.
Add in a focus on the small boats in reaction to Reform's surge and you have the essence of the Starmer Ministry. It strikes me as a very reductionist way of running a government, stripping back the job of government to core essentials to win re-election - which, as the Blairites will not tire of telling you, is all that matters.
It is so very uninspiring. It's almost as though, in his desperation to repudiate everything about Corbyn's leadership, Starmer has set out to strip away all hope for anything better, any scintilla of ambition, and every cause for joy.
The one Things One and Two went to back in the day is now £5.50 per morning.
I suppose they could be including the cost of childcare for the time before school.
Very interesting header - thanks. This is a big issue on my radar, particularly delays on trials of serious motoring offences; justice delayed is justice denied. Plus reactive rather than proactive governance - "No, you can't have a zebra crossing. Not enough 5 year olds are in wheelchairs yet."
My one question is on completeness of stats - I want enough to tell if the trend has changed, It's very much a problem like the NHS - questions around both efficiency of process and starvation of resources, filtered through increasing complexity and scope. Then in the Courts combined with the need to alternative dispositions, recognising that pandering to the rabid Daily Mail "Moar prison! Moar ! Moar ! Moar !" lobby, and their political hangers-on, is both less effective and more expensive.
Another one on the long list where we need investment to get over the innherited bulge and a project which will take a decade to feed through.
The Toolstation Model !
Lordy, Gove is a Lord? That passed me by.
Which in turn will empty some of the overpriced hotel accommodation.
This one is arguably more the responsibility of the minister (Lammy) who is either not sufficiently on top of this part of his brief (he's also Deputy PM), or is insufficiently persuasive in negotiating with the Treasury.
I get the impression that the satisfactory rebuilding of the criminal justice system will run well beyond that.
But the lack of ambition is certainly evident.
The slashing of SureStart was one of the most egregious things done by Cameron & Co.
And absurd that we are happy for prior misinformation to be relevant but post misinformation to be worthy of imprisonment.