A very sad day for English justice

[charitynjw]

I see that The Guardian law section have reported that for the first time in English legal history a judge delivered her own verdict on a serious criminal case after having dismissed the jury. This followed an allegation of jury tampering having been brought to her attention. As I argued in an article for the same section of The Guardian last year the provision which allows such judge-only trials should be abolished. It is sad to see that not only hasn’t this happened but that it has now been used. Perhaps almost as sad is quite how little coverage this received in the press.


http://www.babybarista.com/2011/07/1...BabyBarista%29

[seduraed]

Re: A very sad day for English justice

I fear we'll see a lot more of it as criminals start to target juries.

[Caspar]

Re: A very sad day for English justice

Thanks Charity - I'd not even realised it was legally possible to do that. I thought the old saying of people acting, "as judge and jury" meant that it was considered very unfair. IMO any such allegations should be dealt with by a re-trial with a new jury. It undermines the entire legal system when one person can indeed be judge and jury.

[Brian]

Re: A very sad day for English justice

Guys is this not a NEWTON trial? where the judge sits on both sides of the table, I have had something like this 5 years ago in a crowncourt case, and I have to say in that case the judge was totally impartial (impressive with his knowledge of both CPS and Defendants rules of operation in that trial).

Bri

[CleverClogs]

Re: A very sad day for English justice

Guys is this not a NEWTON trial? where the judge sits on both sides of the table,

For that even to be possible suggests either that it was a very narrow table or that the judge was most egregiously steatopygous.

[charitynjw]

Re: A very sad day for English justice

I believe a Newton trial is only appropriate following a plea of guilty, where there may be a dispute as to the evidence, which may affect the level of sentencing.

[Brian]

Re: A very sad day for English justice

therefore its still a trial where evidence etc has to be laid out and debated before a decision (guilty/not guilty) is made...

: literal syntax on this:
Trial without a jury

Crown Court trial without a jury is permitted in cases of suspected jury tampering where there is evidence of a "real and present danger" and, despite the possibility of police protection, there is a substantial likelihood of tampering, and a trial without a jury is in the interests of justice.[5] The first such prosecution application was made in February 2008.[6]
There are also provisions under the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act 2004, ss.17–20 to try defendants accused of domestic violence on sample counts and, on conviction, for the remainder of the counts to be tried by a judge alone. These provisions came into force on 8 January 2007.[7]
If the defendant pleads autrefois, the judge now decides the matter without a jury.[8] In Northern Ireland, some terrorist offences were tried with bench trials called Diplock courts.


Bri

[CleverClogs]

Re: A very sad day for English justice

It matters not one jot what rationalisations you have cut and pasted from Wikipedia, the fact remains that someone was not tried before a jury of his peers on an indictable offence and was sentenced accordingly.

The verdicts might well have been much the same if the trial had been allowed to proceed normally, as only one member of the jury had been involved. Instead, the Recorder stopped the trial, discharged the jury and then continued the case, perhaps believing it was expedient or more convenient to do that than to ensure that justice was seen to have been done.