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Juries, Judges and Trials

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The word ‘juror’ is derived from the word ‘to swear’ in French. Since the time of William the conqueror, he brought back the jury system from Normandy and popularized it in England, back then juries have to investigate the cases themselves. The Jury system have then spread to United States, Africa and Asia countries. Juries are a group of people consisting twelve members, whom are randomly chosen from the general population, that were bought together in criminal and civil events to assist justice on giving opinions, establish the facts given by antagonistic parties and furnish the court with reliable and genuine facts. In People of the State of Colorado ex rel Hunter1, Justice Lee said that the word ‘jury’ was defined as a group of man that sworn to give a verdict upon facts given to them, those men are selected according to the law, empaneled and sworn to investigate into and examine the matter of facts, and to give their verdict according to the results that are legally composed. The rights to trial by juries became an emblem of the overwhelmed power of the King and they had become the fundamental tenet of the law. Our quintessential justice for everyone could not have emerged without the vigorous support for the wisdom of the jury. Why do we need the jury system? In 1956, Lord Devlin had commented that trial by jury is “the lamp that shows that freedom lives.2” It is not only an instrument of justice, it is also the keystone for democracy and rules on law in the United Kingdom. The original part of the juror was one of the prosecutor and police. In 1215, they became an essential part in the criminal law system. And in the same year, Magna Carta had recognized the basis of the individual’s rights to trial by their peer. Juries are mostly active in Crown Court. The jurisdiction in the court administers for the hearing of the serious cases on indictment. The criminals will first be taken to the Magistrates’ Court pledged. The jury trial will be held if there was a guilty plea in the case. If not, a jury trial is not needed and the criminals will be facing the criminal charges that are given. The function of the jury system is to weigh up the testimony and decide what the real facts in the case are. In trials, the judges have the capability to direct juris to acquit the defendant when there is inadequate facts to convict them, but this is also the main shield towards juries accounting defendant guilty in spite of either incomplete or inadequacy of the evidence. The juries will listen to the disputes, take notes on the facts and analyse on the evidence presented in order to reach a verdict. In cases which are complicated, the trial judge will explicit that the juries are reassured of further jury services in a specific period of time. The juries will be reminded about their work, including the cogitation and minutiae of how they may be voted, is to be kept confidential and exclusive. As stated by Madame Justice Arbour in R v Pan3, she wrote that juries are not like judges, they do not have to give reasons for their decisions. The decisions are made either collectively or by majority. They must be uninfluenced by anyone as stated in Bushell’s Case4 that the juries are the arbiters of the evidence in the case and judges cannot deny the decision. The prosecution is responsible for making up the case out the case against the offender and the juries must make sure that the facts are all satisfied before reaching a verdict. The modern commensurate is that the juries must be very “sure” that the offender is liable for what he or she did. The juries will identify and choose a jury foreman, he or she will then represent the member of juries to announce the verdict. The juries must be capable of giving sociological and psychological aid where the rigidity and neutrality of the law cannot. An inquest, which is a judicial examination to ascertain the evidence relating to a situation, could be held where the twelve gallants were requested to provide details about suspected offense in their area. This practice was known as the Grand Jury. Later in 1200s to 1300s, trial by jury became much more common in the trials of malpractice in courts. Blackstone indicate that “a trial that hath been used time out of mind in this nation, and seems to have been coeval with the first civil government thereof.”’5 The jury does not owe its presence to any biased notion of jurisprudence, but before and after the Conquest, it was progressively used betw

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