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CONTENTS

















NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF ADVANCED LEGAL STUDIES
2014
HISTORY OF
STATUTORY
PRESUMPTIONS
EVOLUTION AND HISTORY OF JURY
SYSTEM WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO
CRIMINAL JURIES
NAMRATHA KESHAVA

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INDEX
1.Introduction
2.Origin of jury system
3.Primitiive jury system
4.Jury system in medieval England
5.Modern jury system
6.How are jurors selected?
7.Advantages of jury system
8.Disadvantages of jury system
9.Procedure of trial in England
10.Independence of trial
11.Jury trial in India
12.Conclusion







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INTRODUCTION
"I consider Trial by Jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by whom a government
can be held to the principles of its constitution".
Thomas Jefferson
A jury is a legal institution which consists of a group of people who are sworn to hear facts of
a case and deliver a verdict . This group of people are generally lay men randomly selected
from the population. They come to a decision on the basis of majority which is decided based
on voting. This system is often criticised for being arbitrary in nature. The jury system
facilitates public participation in the justice delivery system . It helps the society at large to
decide on what is right and what is wrong . We need to understand here that since time
immemorial this system of society delivering justice has existed . Let us go back to the first
human settlements when man had just discovered community living and we will see that the
punishments and the sanctions for the wrongs committed in society were decided by the
members of society itself. This system is commonly found in the common law adversarial
system .
It is a distinctive feature of the ANGLO SAXON SYSTEM so much so ,it is called" THE
FAVOURITE CHILD OF ENGLISH LAW".
The concept of the jury system was imported into Britain after the Norman Conquest, though
its early functions were quite different from those today. Early jurors in England acted as
witnesses providing sources of information on local affairs. But they gradually came to be
used as adjudicators in both civil and criminal disputes. Under Henry II, the jury began to
take on an important function, moving from reporting on events they knew about, to
deliberating on evidence produced by the parties involved in a dispute. Gradually it became
accepted that a juror should know as little as possible about the facts of the case before the
trial, and which is the position today.
The jury is considered as fundamental part of the English legal system, albeit only a minority
of the cases is tried by the jury in these days. In a sense it plays a vital role in ensuring that
the criminal justice system works for the benefit of the public rather than for the benefit of
unjust leaders. It promotes not only a healthy criminal justice system but also a healthy
society, where political leaders cannot abuse criminal justice system to silence their
opponents.
It has attained such an importance that Lord Devlin wrote in 1956:
. Trial by jury is more than an instrument of justice and more than a wheel of the
constitution; it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives.
Jury plays a vital role in the criminal justice system in England and Wales and many other
countries in the world. But the constitutional position of the English jury is vulnerable
because of the unwritten constitution. In England, because of unwritten constitution, the right
to trial by jury is not contained in the constitution. Generally, it is governed by ordinary Act
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of the parliamentary, which can be amended by the Parliament any time. So the government
of the day could alter or even abolish the right to jury trial. However, due to the political
barriers, the government is very cautious in doing this. Juries Act 1974 is the main statute
governing the present day jury. Currently, the role of the English jury is almost entirely
limited to the more serious criminal cases, but juries occasionally sit in civil trials as well
This system works in different ways in different countries, the framework and procedures are
distinct to every country's legal and political system.
This paper aims to trace the origin and the evolution of the jury system . It seeks to explain in
depth the institution of jury and analyse the transformation in this Legal institution .It also
lays light upon the reasons for the origin of the Jury System. Special emphasis has been laid
upon juries related to criminal cases and criminal juries. There is also importance laid on the
Jury system in India which ceases to exists today.
The research paper on the whole will give a holistic perspective on the jury system.
ORIGIN OF JURY SYSTEM
The word jury has its roots in the French word' jure 'meaning sworn.
The jury system has its origin deeply rooted in ancient Greek customs , It is said to have
originated in Athens about five to six centuries before the birth of Jesus christ .and then
travelled to Rome and later to France in the ninth century. There is a lot of clash between
historians on the origin of the Jury system , A few of them believe that it was in Britain that
the birth of the jury system took place , others believe that it was the Norman conquests that
brought the jury system to Britain .
The more accepted theory is that the Normans brought the jury system with them during their
conquest in 1066. The Normans had developed the practice of putting a group of individuals
under oath (juror
1
)to tell the truth. Early jurors acted as sources of information on local
affairs . Initially jurors were selected for their prior knowledge in the issue at hand
2
.
Meyer
3
looks upon the jury as a modification of the Grand Assize, established under Henry II
and partly an imitation of the feudal courts erected in Palestine by the crusaders, Reeves
4
is of
the opinion that when Rollo
5
led his followers into Normandy, he carried with them this
mode of trial from the north. He says that it was used in Normandy in cases of small
importance, and that when the Normans had transplanted themselves into England, they
endeavoured to substitute it in place of the Saxon tribunals.

1
Originated from the word' jurare ' meaning to swear
2
SALLY LLOYD-BOSTOCK AND CHERYL THOMAS, Decline of the Little Parliament: Juries and
Jury reform in England and Wales, Volume 62, Number 2, (1999)
3
The Origin and Development of the Judicial Institutions of Europe
4
History of English Law
5
founder and first ruler of the Viking principality which soon became known as Normandy
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In England and Wales some form of trial by jury has existed for probably about a thousand
years, although its fair to say that in its early incarnation it bore little resemblance to the
system we have today. The groups of noblemen assigned to the task were required to
investigate the case themselves and it was primarily used as a means of resolving property
disputes.
The right for a man to be punished only pursuant to the the lawful judgement of his equals
was enshrined in King Johns Magna Carta in 1215. The right was of course a limited one
and only available to men of a certain standing, but I think it does have some resonance even
now, because it lays the foundation stone for the principle of judgement by ones peers. It
was certainly preferable to using ordeal by water or fire as methods of proving guilt or
innocence.
By the 17th century the right to be judged by ones peers was confirmed in the Act which
abolished the Star Chamber. The development I want to focus on concerns the right of the
jury to return the verdict they consider just and Bushels case of 1670, which confirmed that a
jury could not be punished by reason of the verdict it returned, is one of the earliest and most
important examples. Bushel had been a member of the jury trying Penn and Mead, two
Quakers who were charged with unlawful assembly for holding a religious meeting in
violation of the Conventicle Act
6
. The jury found the two guilty of speaking in Gracechurch
Street but refused to add to an unlawful assembly. The judge reacted by imprisoning them
without food, heat or water but this was a jury made of stern stuff and after two days they
returned a further verdict of not guilty. The judge went on to fine them for returning a verdict
contrary to their findings of fact and imprisoned them for contempt. Bushel petitioned the
Court of Common Pleas for a writ of habeas corpus and the subsequent proceedings
confirmed the principle of juries independence that we value so greatly and which provides
an essential guarantor of freedom.
The operation of jury trial was still a far cry from what we now understand for example
lawyers only became a regular feature at the turn of the 19th century and juries might hear
half a dozen cases in a day before retiring to consider their verdicts. Until 1858, the jury
would be kept without fire, food or drink until a verdict was reached (or, as in Bushels
case, a satisfactory verdict) so it is perhaps no surprise that it was often a swift affair. The
right of the defendant to testify, access to free legal representation and the establishment of an
appellate procedure are all recent innovations in this story and make the function of the jury
now very different from even a hundred years ago.
Examples of juries returning verdicts unpopular with the governing regime, or which may
appear to contradict the directions of the judge are not confined to the distant past.
As recently as 2005 the House of Lords confirmed in the case of R v Wang ([2005] 1 W.L.R.
661) that there are no circumstances in which a judge is entitled to direct a jury to return a

6
The Conventicle Act of 1664 was an Act of the Parliament of England (16 Charles II c. 4) that forbade
conventicles (religious assemblies of more than five people outside the auspices of the Church of
England).
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verdict of guilty. Mr Wang was charged with possessing offensive weapons in a public place.
He had a sword and a knife which he claimed was because he practised Shaolin, a traditional
martial art. The judge found that the defendant had failed to advance a lawful defence,
because his claim could not amount to a good reason for having the articles and directed the
jury to convict. The Court of Appeal agreed with the trial judge that it had been plain beyond
sensible argument that the material before the jury could not discharge the burden of proof
which the offence placed on the defendant.

WHY DID THE JURY SYSTEM ORIGINATE ?
We saw the origin of the Jury system , Now let us look at the reasons which led to the origin
of the Jury system. Two main events which led to the evolution of the jury system were The
Abolition of Trial by Ordeal as an accepted mode of trial and the Jurisdictional loss of the
communal or county courts over pleas of land to the royal courts.
To understand the jury system in more depth we need to go back in time and analyze how
justice was delivered in the olden days .The earliest method was trial by ordeal where it was
regarded as an appeal to God to decide the guilt or innocence of a person . Ordeal by fire
7
or
water
8
was common in this type of ordeal which was abolished in 1215. This system of trial
was followed by trial by compurgation where the prisoner had to find a special number of
oath to swear of his innocence.
Another method of trial was by battle where the winner of a duel was proved to be innocent
which was abolished in 1819.Trial by witnesses was another method which was used where
where the plaintiff produced a secta to support it .Then the defendant put forward his defence
and a body of witnesses to support it. The case was decide by counting the head of witnesses
and by checking whether all the witnesses told the same tale.
The inconsistency and arbitrariness of the previous systems led to the origin of the jury
system.

PRIMITIVE JURY SYSTEM
At first no person could be compelled to submit to a trial by jury without his consent. If he
remained silent when asked to plead to treason or misdemeanour , this was treated as a plea
of guilty. In case of felony , he had to submit to jury trial and was pressed by heavy weights

7
Ordeal of fire typically required that the accused walk a certain distance, usually nine feet (about 3
metres), over red-hot ploughshares or holding a red-hot iron. Innocence was sometimes established
by a complete lack of injury, but it was more common for the wound to be bandaged and re-
examined three days later by a priest, who would pronounce that God had intervened to heal it, or
that it was merely festeringin which case the suspect would be exiled or executed.
8
the ordeal of hot water requires the accused to dip his hand in a kettle of boiling water and retrieve
a stone. The ordeal of cold water said that a man was to be submerged in a stream and acquitted if he
survived
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of iron upon his chest until he consented or died. This Barbaric procedure was called ' peine
forte et dure'
9
usually resulted in acquiescence but many died rather than submit to the cruel
jury system. There are records of prisoners being pressed to death in 1658. In 1772 this
procedure was abolished and a provision introduced that silence should be treated as a plea of
guilty in all cases . In 1827 statute altered the position by providing that standing mute be
treated as a plea of not guilty. Another primitive system of juries is the benefit of clergy
system , clergy men could claim that they were out of the jurisdiction of the secular courts
and had to be tried by ecclesiastical jurisdiction. This was a more lenient system as all that
the clergy men had to do was produce 12 men to swear by their innocence . This shows us
how the 12 men in a jury came up. In this form of trial an accused could go scot free if he
knew psalm 51 as it was the knowledge of this psalm that decided whether the person is
guilty or not. This mode of trial was abolished by article 39 of the magna carta
10
of 1215
JURY SYSTEM IN MEDIVEAL ENGLAND
The function of a jury in medieval England and earlier was very different to a jury today. The
purpose of a post-Norman jury, in the relatively undeveloped, uncodified, legal landscape,
was twofold. First, it was, in part, to define what the law was, by reference to the norms of
the local society and standards of behaviour. Secondly, it was to establish, by personal
knowledge of a defendant, whether the defendant had committed the conduct complained of.
So the function of an early jury was mixed. It was partly to determine the law, and partly to
establish guilt, based on personal, prior knowledge. That was well suited a sparsely-
populated, atomised network of small agrarian communities, where there were no
professional judges and, until the high medieval period, very few accessible lawyers. Justice
in manorial courts, or other local assemblies, was suited to that individual community, and
the role of the jury in deciding where moral standards lay (both in criminal and civil law) was
appropriate, efficient and necessary, and it functioned well.
MODERN JURY SYSTEM WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ENGLAND
In the modern jury system, a group of strangers are asked whether a person did or did not
commit certain acts. They do not bring a personal knowledge of the defendant and his
character into the court. They are not required to comment on the law it is expressly not
part of their function. Their function is not, and should not be, to decide what the law is it is
simply to answer the question, did the acts in the indictment take place as alleged?. In the
jury system of England , a jury can be summoned for indictable criminal offenses or criminal
offenses triable either as indictable or summary at the election of the accused. In civil trials,
summoning a jury is limited to certain specified civil disputes heard in the Queen's Bench.
The general trend has been towards reduced use of juries in both criminal and civil trials,
with only a low percentage of trial courts summoning a jury. Obtaining a trial by jury is not
considered a right in the judicial system of England and Wales and is subject to the
limitations established by Parliament. The policy adopted by Parliament appears to involve

9
"hard and forceful punishment"
Magna Carta (Latin for Great Charter), also called Magna Carta Libertatum or The Great Charter of
the Liberties of England, is an Angevin charter originally issued in Latin in June 1215
10

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incremental restrictions on the ability of the accused to obtain a trial by jury. The Criminal
Justice Act 2003 (CJA 2003) altered the jury system in England and Wales by granting the
Crown Court discretion to deny a trial by jury for certain fraud offenses and in circumstances
when a danger of jury tampering exists. It also altered the nature of the offenses identified as
triable-either-way in the magistrates' courts. Juries in civil trials in the court system of
England and Wales are very rare because the judge has the discretion to order the trial to be
held without a jury under the Administration of Justice Act 1933. The same statute, however,
provided that the court must grant application for a trial by jury made by either party in cases
involving slander, libel, fraud, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, seduction, and
breach of promise of marriage. The provisions of the Administration of Justice Act 1933
were subsequently amended by the Supreme Court Act 1981, to grant the court discretion
over whether to grant an application for a trial by jury in civil cases except those involving
slander, libel, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution. With respect to cases involving
fraud, the Supreme Court Act 1981 further specified that the court will consider applications
only by the party against whom the fraud is charged. The criteria the court uses when
determining whether to grant the application for a trial by jury is the judge's assessment of
whether the subject matter is so technical or the case would be so prolonged as to place a
burden on the jury that would not be in the interests of justice. As a result, the judge can
deem the jury incompetent to assess complex legal issues or technical information related to
the case at bar (Cairns & McLeod, 2002). In practice, the Supreme Court Act 1981 has
resulted in the elimination of trial by jury in civil cases in all but a very small number of
cases.
11


JURY SYSTEM WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO CRIMINAL CASES

Although juries are very important in the criminal justice system, they actually deal only in a
minority of the cases. Criminal offences are classified into three categories. "Summary"
offences are the minor offences and less serious and are triable only in the magistrate's courts.
For example minor traffic offences. The most serious kind of offences is "indictable only"
which must be tried in the Crown Court. Between these extremes kinds there is another kind
of offences called as "triable either way." Such cases, as it is clear from the name, can be tried
either in the magistrate's courts if the magistrates are willing to here the case and the
defendant consents or in the Crown Court. In these cases, the defendant has the right to insist
on being tried in the Crown Court, so either the magistrates or the defendant can opt for trial
in the Crown Court. Jury can try a case in the Crown Court and if the defendant pleads not
guilty, and the trial proceeds further, he or she will be tried before a jury. The majority of the
criminal cases are summary only because they are least serious and commonly committed,
and as a result 95% of the cases are heard in the magistrates courts, where the juries have no
role (this also includes those cases in which accused pleads guilty in either way offences).

11
Cairns, J. & McLeod, G. 2002. The dearest birthright of the people of England: The jury in the
history of the Common Law. Oxford: Hart Publishing.
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Out of the remaining 5% of the cases heard in the Crown Court, in majority of the cases
either defendant pleads guilty, so there is no need of a jury or the judge directs the jury that
law demands that they acquit the defendant. As a result the juries actually decide only around
1% of criminal cases. But on the other hand this 1% amounts to 30,000 trials and these are
the most serious ones .It is very difficult to answer that why defendants opt for Crown Court
trial instead of a magistrate court, but research shows that there is a perception that there are
more chances of acquittal before a jury than before a magistrate. This perception is born out
by statistical evidence showing acquittal rates of approximately 40% in jury trials as
compared with 25% in magistrate's courts.

DEVELOPMENT OF JURY SYSTEM WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO CRIMINAL
JURIES.
The jury system in England was a child of necessity .It was the result of a highly arbitary and
inconsistent system of justice delivery. The idea of trial jury was first proposed by the magna
Carta in 1215
12
.In those times trial juries were available only to those who had property ,
hence only the knights and landowners could opt for the jury trial. Initially the jury system
was not accepted and had to face a lot of criticism. By 1664 juries were routinely penalised
by the ways of fines for acquitting people. . Such was what happened in the case of William
Penn in the year 1670, he was charged with preaching Quakerism to an unlawful assembly,
and out of a jury of 12, four of the jurors voted for acquittal in spite of being starved and
imprisoned for four days
13
.
In the 12th century, Henry The 2nd introduced the grand jury system with the
establishment of the Assizes of Clarendon
14
and Northampton
15
. The Assizes of Clarendon
and Northampton introduced by Henry II put certain offences on a special footing and altered
their criminal procedure. These ordinances provided that offenders committing grave
offences be presented before to royal commissioners by jurors. The assize is generally
regarded as an important step in the development of common law machinery for the public
prosecution of crime and of the integration of county courts into a national court system. This
provided that twelve men of good repute and without criminal records of every Shire must
present the crimes of which they knew or had heard. The bailiff of each hundred chose two

12
See Also LYSANDER SPOONER, An Essay on The Trial by Jury, (1852) P. 20-21, (Found at
http://www.barefootsworld.net/trial02.html)
13
Refer to SALLY LLOYD-BOSTOCK AND CHERYL THOMAS, Decline of the Little Parliament:
Juries and Jury reform in England and Wales, Volume 62, Number 2, 1999, P.9
14
.The Assize of Clarendon was an 1166 act of Henry II of England that began the transformation of
English law from such systems for deciding the prevailing party in a case, especially felonies, as trial
by ordeal or trial by battle or trial by compurgation to an evidentiary model, in which evidence,
inspection, and inquiry was made by laymen, knights or ordinary freemen, under oath. This act
greatly fostered the methods that would eventually be known in common law countries as trial by
jury.
15
The Assize of Northampton, largely based on the Assize of Clarendon of 1166, is among a series of
measures taken by King Henry II of England that solidified the rights of the knightly tenants and
made all possession of land subject to and guaranteed by royal law
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electors who chose ten other prominent gentlemen to form a grand jury with them. Although
in their early days, the grand jury did form the jury trial; their duty in actuality was
circumscribed to bringing to notice the proof of guilt rather than adjudication upon it. It
subsequently developed into a method of prevention of indiscriminate prosecution of the
accused
16
. Before going further it is very important to understand the main types of juries
which existed in England at this time. There was mainly the grand jury and the petit jury. The
Grand Jury; The function of a grand jury was to accuse anyone who might be guilty of an
offence and to protect others against unfounded prosecution (such as an accusation made out
of malice). The grand jury would decide if there was sufficient evidence in a case to put the
defendant on trial. At the start of the Assizes (or Quarter Sessions), they would vet the
indictments and statements and hear evidence from the prosecutors and their witnesses, but
not defendants. If a grand jury believed the evidence was sufficient to warrant a trial, the case
was approved as a "true bill"; those rejected were labelled "ignoramus" (or "not found" or "no
bill") and the case was dropped .Members of the grand jury tended to be from middle ranking
professions such as merchants, professionals, wealthier tradesmen and artisans. Grand jurors
for the Assizes were ideally the "best figures in the county", while those at Quarter Sessions
had the same qualifications as ordinary jurors, at that time limited to ratepayers. The role of
the grand jury was reduced in the late nineteenth century, when pre-trial investigations by
justices and the police, weeded out weak cases before indictments were drawn up. The grand
jury procedure was abolished in 1933.
The Petty or Petit Jury; The petty jury or trial jury usually consisted of 12 jurors as it does
today. It was the jury that heard the evidence in a trial and decided on the innocence or guilt
of a defendant. After listening to the witnesses and lawyers (if present), the jury would retire,
or huddle, and reach its verdict .In some courts, cases were tried in batches, so juries could
hear, perhaps, half a dozen trials before they retired to discuss their decisions
17
.
Initially it was seen that grand jurors sat on petty jurors ,This was very unfair to the prisoner
or accused as there would be a lot of prejudice against him. By the fourteenth century this
system was scrapped.
In this system even if the principle said that a certain offense came under the jurisdiction of
the jury , the offender had to plead to the king in the form of giving him chattel or cash or
kind to plead for a trial by jury. Another defect in the system was that of presumption of guilt
, when a person was produce in court he was presumed to be guilty. For example if a man
was found near a dead man with a knife in his hand he was presumed to be guilty. He could
neither ask for a trial nor plead not guilty , it was presumed that he killed the other man. Also
in the case where a man as been murdered in his sleep at home and the others in the house at
that time don't create a hue and cry or have any wounds showing that they tried to defend him
from the assassin it was taken for granted that they were guilty. This system where certain
appearances on the part of the accused are treated as conclusive presumptions of guilt instead
of circumstantial appearances shows us how faulty jurisprudence was in that era.

16
WILLIAM FORSYTH, History of Trial by Jury, (Second Edition), P.159
17
vcp.e2bn.org/justice/page11440-juries.htm(last visited on 14 march 2014)
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It seems, however, there in some cases where the circumstances raised a violent presumption
of guilt, the justices might direct, an inquiry by a jury, although Bracton
18
says it would be
scarcely possible for the accused to escape conviction, on account of the strong presumption
against him. And in answer to the objection, that he cannot be pronounced not guilty of a
deed done so secretly that the country can know nothing of the matter, a country (I. e., the
jury) sufficiently acquits when it does not expressly convict. If the accused person put
himself upon a jury for trial, He was not allowed to choose the patria of any hundred he
preferred, but the justices assigned for the purpose any set of twelve they pleased from
amongst those who represented each hundred
HOW ARE JURORS SELECTED?
The qualifications and prohibitions determining who can serve on a jury have undergone
some significant changes in the last few decades. The number of jurors has remained twelve,
but the age limit has been lowered to eighteen years. and eligibility has been extended to
include anyone on the electoral register not excluded for some specific reason.114 To qualify
for jury service, a person must be between eighteen and seventy years of age and must have
been a resident in the United Kingdom for at least five years since reaching the age of
thirteen. Persons who have been sentenced in the United Kingdom to more than five years
imprisonment are disqualified from serving, as are persons who have served any part of
certain sentences in the past ten years, have been placed on probation in the last five years, or
are currently on bail in criminal proceedings. Several categories of persons are ineligible
rather than disqualified. These include judges and those concerned with the administration of
justice (including barristers, solicitors, police officers, prison officers, and court staff),the
clergy, and mentally disordered persons. In addition, members of several professions
currently have the legal right to refuse to serve, including Members of Parliament, peers,
doctors, dentists, nurses, veterinary surgeons, chemists, and anyone in the armed forces. With
the aim of reducing requests to be excused, the Criminal Justice Act of 1988 introduced the
possibility of deferring jury service and requiring those who have specific commitments to
serve at a later date. Potential jurors are randomly selected from the electoral register.
Before1972, jurors were drawn only from those who owned property of a prescribed rateable
value, which ensured that juries were predominantly male, middle-aged, middle-minded and
middle class.Research has shown that there have been profound changes in the composition
of juries since 1972. They have become much younger and less middle class. However, there
still appears to be an under-representation of women and ethnic minorities. The extension of
the jury franchise in 1972 followed the recommendation of the Morris Committee in 1965.In
contrast to other changes in the rules relating to juries over the past twenty-five years, this
change appears to have been dictated by due process rather than crime control values
.Random selection of jurors from the electoral register has been done by computer since
1981. The people selected receive a summons requiring them to attend at the Crown Court at

18
Henry of Bracton, also Henry de Bracton, also Henrici Bracton, or Henry Bratton (c. 1210 c. 1268)
was an English jurist. He is famous now for his writings on law, particularly De Legibus et
Consuetudinibus Angliae ("On the Laws and Customs of England"), and his ideas on mens rea, or
criminal intent
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a specified time. Those summoned constitute the panel from which the jury for an individual
case will be selected if a plea of not guilty is entered. Twelve people are selected from the
jury panel by ballot, which is conducted in open court, and after an opportunity for
challenges, as discussed below, the jury is sworn and the trial can begin
19

ADVANTAGES OF A JURY SYSTEM
The main advantages of a jury system are the fact that it
a)allows public participation in justice delivery.
b)It provides confidence to the people about the impartiality and fairness about the justice
delivery system.
c) Jury Equity as juries are not legal experts, are not bound to follow the precedent of past
cases or even Acts of Parliament, and do not have to give reasons for their verdict it is
possible for them to decide cases on their idea of fairness. This is referred to as jury equity
d) A jury is not case hardened since they only sit for 2 weeks and are unlikely to try more
than three or four cases in that time.
DISADVANTAGES OF JURY SYSTEM
a)Perverse decisions the jury can ignore an unjust law however this type of decision can be
seen as perverse and one which was not justified. Juries have refused to convict in other
clear-cut cases such as R v Randle and Pottle (1991) where the defendants were charged with
helping the spy George Blake to escape from prison. Their prosecution did not occur until 25
years after the escape, when they wrote about what they had done and the jury acquitted
them, possibly as a protest over the time lapse between the offence and the prosecution.
b) Secrecy no reasons have to be given for the verdict, so there is no way of knowing if the
jury did understand the case and come to the decision for the right reasons
c) Racial bias although jurors have no direct interest in a case, and despite the fact that
there are 12 of them, they may still have prejudices which can affect the verdict. Some jurors
may be biased against the police
d)Media Influence media coverage may influence jurors. This is especially true in high-
profile cases where there has been a lot of publicity about police investigations into a case.
Prosecution agencies are aware of problems that media coverage can cause. This was
noticeable in 2006 when 5 prostitutes were murdered in Ipswich prior to anyone being
charged there was already a lot of media coverage. Once a man was charged with the murders
a member of the CPS made a public announcement to the press reminding them that they
must be careful in any further coverage of the case.
e)Lack of understanding jurors may not understand the case which they are trying

19
SALLY LLOYD-BOSTOCK AND CHERYL THOMAS, Decline of the Little Parliament: Juries and
Jury reform in England and Wales, Volume 62, Number 2, (1999), P. 15-16
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f) Fraud trials have complex accounts being given in evidence and can create special
problems for jurors. Even jurors who can easily cope with other evidence may have difficulty
understanding a fraud case. These cases are also often very long so that the jurors have to be
able to be away from their own work for months and this can place great strain on jurors and
are often boring.
g)High acquittal rates juries are criticized because they acquit too many defendants. 60%
of those that plead not guilty at the Crown Court are acquitted
h)Jury service can be a strain especially where jurors have to listen to horrific evidence.
Jurors in the Rosemary West case were offered counseling after the trial to help them cope
with the evidence they had had to see and hear.
i)Jury nobbling
20
does occur and in some cases jurors have had to be provided with police
protection.
j)The use of juries makes trials slow and expensive. Each point has to be explained
carefully to the jury and the whole procedure takes a lot of time and money.

PROCEDURE OF A TRIAL IN JURY SYSTEM OF TRIAL.
We need to understand that the jury is a trier of facts and the judge is a trier of law .After the
jurors are selected the trial begins. A discussion of jury trial is incomplete without a reference
to the important functions which a judge plays in the proceedings. Although the trial is
organized on the basis that the judge is responsible for issues of law and the jury for making
decision on facts, but there are three points that need to be considered. First the judge has the
power to halt a weak prosecution case and direct the jury to acquit. The exercise of this power
has given rise to a debate that whether there should be a fixed division of functions between a
judge and a jury. In 1981, in an important ruling, Court of Appeal said that judge's power to
intervene in this way should be confined to those cases where the judges arrive at the
conclusion that the prosecution evidence is so weak that the jury could not properly convict
on it. But the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice actually recommended that the Court of
Appeal ruling should be reversed to allow the judges to direct an acquittal if they consider
that the prosecution case to be clearly too weak to be left to the jury. Such a power is, on the
one hand an important safeguard against miscarriages of justice and on the other hand,
excessive reliance on this power, shows a lack of faith in the jury itself to reach at a
satisfactory outcome. Secondly judge has an important responsibility to assist the jury in its
determination of the facts, during the course of the trial. Two aspects of this responsibility are
the power of the judge to intervene during the course of the evidence and the power to
comment on the facts in the judicial summing up at the end of a case. Albeit the questioning
of the witnesses is generally left to the lawyers for each side, but it is recognized that the
judge may intervene if it is necessary to clear certain points that have been left unclear or to
exclude irrelevant matters and to discourage repetition. In practice judges even have wide

20
juries intimidated into bringing in a guilty verdict.
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discretion to intervene while witnesses are giving their evidence. Thirdly as the criminal law
is a very complex field, so the jury's decision on the facts of the case is predicated on the
assumption that they have understood the legal concepts applicable to the crime for which the
defendant is on trial. But in complex case where some concepts require explanation, their
legal meaning will have to be very carefully explained to the jury by the judge in summing
up, and in turn will be applied by the jury in the course of its factual decision-making.

At the end of the prosecution's case the judge can order the defendant to be acquitted if the
prosecution's case by law does not prove the defendant guilty, this is called direct acquittal.
This happens in 10 %of the cases. If the case continues the judge will sum up the case and
direct them on the points of law. After this the jury goes into a separate room for
deliberations and come to a consensus. If they are not able to come upon a consensus even
after two hours, the judge may call them and accept majority. Here we need to understand
that majority can be accepted only if the jury consists more than nine jurors The jury is not
obliged to explain itself. The judge is forced to accept the jury's verdict even if he is against it
. This has been seen in the very famous Bushel's case (1671)
21
.
INDEPENDENCE OF JURY SYSTEM
Bushell 's Case (1670) jurors refused to convict Quaker activists of unlawful assembly. The
trial judge would not accept the not guilty verdict and ordered the jurors to resume their
deliberations without food or drink. When the jurors persisted in their refusal to convict, the
court fined them and committed them to prison until the fines were paid. On appeal, the Court
of Common Pleas ordered the release of the jurors holding that jurors could not be punished
for their verdict- This established that the jury were the sole arbiters of fact and the judge
could not challenge their decision .R v McKenna (1960) in this case the judge at the trial had
threatened the jury if they did not return with a verdict within 10 minutes they would be
locked up all night. The jury returned with a verdict of guilty but the defendants conviction
was quashed on appeal because of the judges interference.
22


These two landmark cases laid the foundation for the functioning of an independent jury
system.
TRIAL JURY IN INDIA
Long before its introduction into criminal procedure codes, a right to a jury trial for all
Englishmen was considered imperative (and demanded vehemently) if there was to be greater
investment of capital into India . Similarly, there were demands from British-born merchants
and manufacturers for British-born subjects to be tried by a jury that consisted of at least one

21
Bushels Case (1670) 124 E.R. 1006 (also spelled "Bushell's Case") is a famous English decision on the
role of juries. It also confirmed that the Court of Common Pleas could issue a writ of habeas corpus in
ordinary criminal cases
22
http://www.academia.edu/410915/History_of_the_Jury_System(last seen on march 20)
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half of Europeans (and later Americans). This was argued to be necessary in the interests of
fairness and equity. But the more pragmatic reason was also mentioned this would be the
best-case scenario, given the relatively low number of British settlers. Trial by a jury that was
at least in some part sympathetic to the colonial cause would diminish the power of native
officials, who liberally dispensed punishments such as transportation and deportation to the
Europeans and to Americans.

Hence, unlike the English jury system, which originated as a community-based form of
adjudication, the jury in India was a colonial legal transplant. Adjudication is not an isolated
process by a professionally-trained judge interpreting neutral legal texts in colonial India.
Pre-colonial India seems to have community-based forms of adjudication and punishment.
The role of the kazi in Islamic legal culture encompassed guilt determination and sentencing,
and took into account the wishes of the parties, and their social and economic status.
Company Raj brought with it many parallel forms of adjudication. There were Company
courts, merchant guilds, and other local forms of adjudication. There are accounts of traders
and merchants, as opposed to professional judges, deciding property cases and money
matters in the Presidency towns in the 1700s .

Trial by jury was part of the Company court structure in the Presidency towns, the original
side criminal litigation in the Supreme Court at Calcutta. and, after 1861, the Chartered High
Courts as well. Jurors in the early versions of the Code of Criminal Procedure had the same
connotation as in Britain, and assessors referred to the Islamic lawyers who sat along with the
judges to decide the cases. Under the new hierarchy of courts, trial by jury in a Sessions
Court was established soon after. A commentator notes how this was only selectively applied
to certain kinds of crimes, mostly relating to offences against property, theft, robbery, and
housebreaking. Powers were given to local government to decide what kinds of crimes
merited trial by jury and where it would apply, geographically.
Trial by jury was abolished in India following the famous Nanavati case
23
.It was held
following this case that often juries make decisions and deliver verdicts which are partial or
biased based on what the media and public opinion at large is related to that case.
CONCLUSION
Juries have existed for more than 1000 years now. Initially they were used as a method to
inquire into the matter as juries consisted of people who provided local knowledge and acted
as witnesses as compared to the current day scenario where juries are triers of fact. In the
current global scenario Juries are not as commonly used today as they were used previously
.Irrespective of this juries have played a very important role in the growth of common law.

23
1962 AIR 605 1962 SCR Supl. (1) 567.
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Juries have been an important part of the common law system and have been a crucial
element in the evolution of common law.

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