ANALYSIS:The collapse of a high-profile jury trial in the UK has prompted debate over the role of the criminal jury. Questions have been raised as to whether a jury of laypersons is the most appropriate means of deciding criminal guilt or innocence in an adversarial criminal trial.
The case raises some interesting issues which merit consideration in an Irish context, bearing in mind that the jury systems in the UK and Ireland are not identical.
Vicky Pryce is the ex-wife of Chris Huhne, a former British minister. She is charged with perverting the course of justice by taking her husband’s speeding points, and she claims the statutory defence of marital coercion.
Her first trial collapsed when the jury were unable to reach a verdict as a result of what the judge described as “absolutely fundamental deficits in understanding”. Ms Pryce is currently being retried by a fresh jury.
Worryingly, two of the 10 questions which the Pryce jurors submitted to the judge reflected a fundamental failure to grasp the basic principles of an adversarial criminal trial. They wanted to know whether a juror could reach his or her decision on the basis of “a reason that was not presented in court and has no facts or evidence to support it”. They also asked whether a defendant has an obligation to present a defence.
In addition to misunderstanding the very nature of the criminal trial, the jurors struggled with the definition of marital coercion, with whether or not they could draw inferences, with whether or not they could speculate as to the defendant’s state of mind and other issues.
Legal aspects
While reaction in much of the British media has been scathing, comment from the legal professions and academics has tended to be in defence of the English jury system.
This case represents an extreme yet rare example of a jury failing in their task. The trial judge commented that he had never experienced anything like it in 30 years. Nevertheless, it may be timely to reconsider some aspects of jury trials which are currently being grappled with in most common law jurisdictions.
The issue of juror comprehension (or incomprehension) is an important one. It is simplistic to state that as evidence complexity increases, juror comprehension decreases. However, research indicates that the risk of jurors struggling to understand is more likely in protracted trials involving considerable amounts of contested or technical evidence.
Trial duration, the number of accused persons, the nature and extent of documentary or forensic evidence, the scope of contested facts and the presence of expert witnesses can all impact on jurors’ overall comprehension, which in turn affects their ability to reach a decision.
Often it will not become apparent that there is a lack of understanding by the jurors until proceedings are at an advanced stage, such as when their deliberations are well under way. It is inevitable that juror incomprehension will sometimes pass undetected. There may be many more cases in which jurors struggle at the level at which the Pryce jurors struggled, but this may not become apparent if they do not actively seek clarification from the trial judge.
Sometimes jurors will continue in deliberations, either oblivious or indifferent to their imperfect understanding of the issues. In other cases they seek clarification from sources other than the judge, and the increased use of the internet by jurors is proving to be problematic in a number of jurisdictions. Because jurors do not give reasons for their decisions, their level of comprehension (and indeed the presence of misconduct in the form of internet research) is almost impossible to assess.
There are cost implications to all of this. The Pryce case, for example, was a three-week trial of a relatively straightforward nature, and has been estimated to cost around £100,000. It is expected that the trial of former Anglo Irish Bank executives next year will last for several months, and there are some 24 million documents to sift through.
The sheer scale of the Anglo Irish Bank case presents a number of challenges for the prosecution, including how best to present the evidence to the jurors. It is only in relatively recent years that juries have been faced with cases of this nature, and arguably the criminal trial has not evolved in line with changes in criminal law. Existing modes of determining guilt may be outdated, and in need of reform.
To comprehend and process the evidence likely to be presented in the Anglo trial would test even those who have expertise in banking, accounting and finance. For the jurors it will be a mammoth task.
* Dr Niamh Howlin lectures in the School of Law, UCD