It may sound daft as a brush, but my theory would be to do away with the court itself, the amount of time and money wasted on the court process is staggering.
There are multiple adjournments on a daily basis to delay court cases, then there’s the travelling costs and a hotel if living too far away.
Would this work or not, you get charged, the judge will do a video conference call to your home, he or she will then sentence the defendant at home , the order to make yourself known to a facility to put on an angle tag, pay the fine , or he or she sets a date for the defendant to make their own way to prison on the date the judge sets?
There are plans to get patients out of wards to be treated at home by using monitoring equipment that’s observed by medical teams at the hospital, this stops bed blocking, even cardiac cases are trialing the treatment at home and for other illnesses and diseases.
Why not streamline it further then?
Just accept that the Police are more honest than criminals, and just hand out sentences with no trial at all?
That will save even more cash.
In the past the crown prosecution service did not exist, it was the police that carried out the prosecution in court which was left open to an unfair trial due to corruption and twisting the facts, there are reports of missing note books that are used when they attended a scene to record the evidence.
Our own TNUK member, Ady, was told to carry out jury duties as anyone on the electoral roll can be called up.
As an aside I did two weeks on Jury service several years ago.
Not something that I would have volunteered for, but I think it is part of our duty to do it. One other juror was on her third session, some never do it. Just the way random selection falls of course.
I believe Ady explained that when called up for jury duty, you could be on a waiting list for two weeks that means waiting around in the hotel until required, as the system requires a back up in case a jury member becomes unwell or it transpired at court that the member has links to the defendant.
The cost of providing jury members for accommodation, meals and travel expenses has to be taken in to consideration especially for a trial that could take months.
How many jurors are sent to hotels? We hear about about that in some very high profile cases, but I doubt it is common. I served in my home town and all of us were, I am pretty sure local-ish. we all commuted in daily.
And the cost of jurors is probably far less than that of the rest of the Judicial system.
It is easy to cut cut costs. It is not so easy to cut costs and have a fair system.
In my case all jurors in our “pool” showed up on a Monday morning. We then were kept in a jurors room the court building until we were assigned to a case. Reading books, crosswords, chatting drinking coffee… I guess that phones etc would all be OK now at this stage of the process. In the court building jurors are all together, but are separate from all others. No lawyers, judges, public.
When assigned to a case you are in court as a group of 12. As the trial starts the accused and witnesses are named so any jurors who know them can be excluded. At this stage a replacement juror is instantly brought in.
During recesses you go to a jury room, but at meal times, again mix with all other jurors in the pool. Dining room on site. During cases you cannot discuss the case outside of the group of 12.
After the case is presented the jury are again secluded until a verdict is reached. Just the 12 of you to decide if/how you want to say anything, who will be jury spokesperson, whether to vote by show of hands, or on paper ballots, or any way at all. The closed jury room is not overseen at all.
In my duty I had a few days doing nothing in between the 3 cases I did sit on.
It is necessary to have jurors sat around as cases can fold in an instant…change of plea to guilty/dismissal, and to make use of time another case needs to be moved up.
They need them for a cracked case, one that collapses quite quickly for a variety of reasons such as the CPS not providing the appropriate evidence and so on.
A trial can cost £20,000 per day, then factor in the hotel at about £150 per night per jury member and the meals, this can soon add up on a long case.
As Franglais said it’s local people selected, the question is, there would be more chance that a jury member would know the defendant or even be related to them which could jeopardise the outcome of a fair trial, or even to be the next door neighbour?
Jurors knowing those involved is pretty much sorted out in the first ten minutes of a trial. If any know persons involved, they say so, and are actually (that I saw) sent home straight away.
I served in a city and the catchment was (guessing) half a million people.
Sure more chance than serving at the other end of the country, but not really necessary IMHO. Just declare that you know someone and all sorted.
To satisfy social distancing measures during the pandemic, benches were reduced to two sitting magistrates instead of three. If the two could not agree a verdict the case had to go for a retrial which further increased the back log.
The magistrate does not need any experience or legal qualifications to be one, they receive legal advice from a qualified person in the court to advise them on the legalities and the technicalities of law.
At the end of the day it is the magistrate (s) who make the decision, not the legally qualified advisor.
Normally a three person bench sits so either a majority or unanimous decision can be reached.
This was reduced to two person benches during the pandemic so obviously if the two came to different decisions the case had to go for retrial.
Yes your honour no bother I’ll be at Strangeways prison for 9am Monday.. course he will 