I believe that it would be a good idea to have someone sitting on a Jury who had a good understanding of road haulage, in most cases a jury does not understand what the f is going on. Its all above there heads. 
Iâd have to agree.
Magna Carta puts into law the right for everyone to be âjudged by their peersâ which would mean a jury of 12 LGV drivers or 12 Doctors, or 12 Accountants etc.
Putting a standard plebian in a jury on a complex fraud case is pretty dumb, but the answer is not to remove such cases from being brought before a jury, but to just dig out some people with a financial background that actually understand how books can be fiddled, and so on.
The more likely case of a professional driver being brought before a Jury would be a charge of âcausing death by dangerous/furious/careless drivingâ which involves anything from a suspended sentence upto 6 years as far as I understand.
The jury might have to decide which one of those three the accused is actually guilty of in this example, or none of the three should the accusation prove groundless. This might be the case when some bystander bod saying âHAP PY9 run over some pedestrian on a country lane with his big truckâ If he made a mistake about getting down the registration, then the case falls apart pretty quickly, and any jury would acquit. 
xfmatt:
Jurors are told what cases they will be sitting on and asked if they have any âconflict of interestâ with the defendant or the offence. I presume you would have to admit to it there if you were a trucker sitting on the jury of a fellow truckers case?!
I donât see how your professions is relevent.
Surely having the same profession does not mean your position on the jury is not credible.
If a builder is on trial for armed robbery, must the jury not contain anyone from the building trade?
Some one I worked with got called and was on a major vat fraud case that went on for about 8 months. He said him and the rest of the jury didnât have a clue what was going on most of the time as it was so complex.
kr79:
Some one I worked with got called and was on a major vat fraud case that went on for about 8 months. He said him and the rest of the jury didnât have a clue what was going on most of the time as it was so complex.
Yes, a brilliant accountant thinks up a complex system for avoiding or evading tax, and more brilliant and mathematically knowledgeable accountants decide that this is illegal and who gets to decide? A load of people from McDonalds and Kwik-Fit. 
Depends who he works for. 
Winseer:
Magna Carta puts into law the right for everyone to be âjudged by their peersâ which would mean a jury of 12 LGV drivers or 12 Doctors, or 12 Accountants etc.
Thatâs one of just three clauses of Magna Carta that still remains part of English law. Some Magna Carta provisions that have been repealed certainly shown their age (for example, no man may be imprisoned on a womanâs testimony unless her husband had died). Later constitutional statutes (especially the Bill of Rights 1689) have a much bigger practical influence on modern law.
âPeersâ, of course, is taken more widely as twelve members of the public. It would be impractical to try for a closer match - if you tried, how far would you go (age, gender, ethnicity, profession, religion, location, educational background?) and how would you ensure you had fifteen matching people in the jury room from which to summon twelve considering the number of relatively straightforward cases a typical Crown Court gets through in a day.
Winseer:
Putting a standard plebian in a jury on a complex fraud case is pretty dumb, but the answer is not to remove such cases from being brought before a jury, but to just dig out some people with a financial background that actually understand how books can be fiddled, and so on.
There are ongoing attempts to have certain complex financial cases tried either by a panel of judges or a panel of expert jurors with a suitable financial background. Parliament has already passed legislation in section 43 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 for certain serious or complex fraud trials to take place without a jury, but no commencement order has been issued to bring these proposals into operation.
The requirement for a commencement order is not unusual. Legislation often does not come into operation at Royal Assent. Instead, it will provide for an appropriate minister to make a commencement order to bring it into operation later. There are quite a few provisions that are never brought into operation. After some nine years and a change in the political colour of the government, it may well be that the 2003 proposal sits on the statute book without ever being commenced.
The section 43 Criminal Justice Act 2003 proposal would only affect a handful of particularly complex cases, which often collapse at the moment because the jury is unable to follow the complex evidence before them.
Winseer:
The more likely case of a professional driver being brought before a Jury would be a charge of âcausing death by dangerous/furious/careless drivingâ which involves anything from a suspended sentence upto 6 years as far as I understand.
Causing death by dangerous driving, contrary to section 1 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 as amended by the Road Traffic Act 1991, involves a sentence of up to fourteen years imprisonment (usual minimum is 12 months, in some circumstances it may be suspended), plus disqualification from driving for at least 2 years, plus the requirement for an extended retest, plus 3-11 penalty points.
limeyphil:
or plane old tachograph offences.
Pilots licence?
I did jury service a long time back - for me it was quite profitable as I took two weeks holiday and claimed for loss of earnings. The exes were pretty good too.
If I were on a jury today I would welcome the case that LP posits because of my (small) expertise. I do believe that most juries try hard to follow the case and probably make the right decision most of the time. Smart arse barristers donât do their clents any favours though.
A lot of people worry about doing Jury service, if it leaves them out of pocket.
If you are Unemployed, then you are most âout of pocketâ, and if you are full time employed, but not by yourself, then you probably stand to gain the most.
The legal system will make up your pay in a similar way to tax credits for those workers who are out of pocket. The money they pay is in itself non-taxable, and is paid as âexpensesâ.
Unemployed people are given a value on their time of âzeroâ and only get the public transport fare refunded!
Self-Employed people are OK if others perform their duties without extra pay whilst they are absent, but obviously worse off if they are a one-man-band who doesnât get paid if they donât work. This could also mean that Agency workers get a raw deal.
I can only speak for the main group of âemployed by firmâ folk, because I was FT employed when I did Jury service in the early 1990âs.
Your employer was then obliged to release you for 2 weeks only, with a say on you being kept longer.
When you arrive at the court, you go into a âpoolâ waiting room, and when a case is about to start 18 of you are picked by shuffling a deck of cards with peoples names on, and randomly picking 18 from the âpoolâ.
All 18 of you are led into the court, youâll see the defendant, youâll hear the indictment read out, and then both Prosecutor and Defence have the right to object to 3 Jurors each, which is why you go into the chamber with âsix spareâ like that. Quite often, as it turns out, a juror will know someone else in the court, even if itâs not the defendant. The actual legal staff might also Object to Jurors, because perhaps they are next door neighbours, regular customers at their relatives business, and so on.
Once the 12 are selected, the left-over six are led out of the chamber, the 12 are sworn in, and the trial begins. The six remainder return to the âpoolâ room.
Take a book or two - the reading material on hand there isnât up to much!
If the case being sworn in for is going to take longer than the 2 weeks that employers are legally bound to release you for, then your employer might have already objected on the expenses declaration as mine did when I was about to land a 6 week attempted murder case. I was returned to the pool, and eventually used for a 3 day violent disorder case, before my 2 week tenure was up.
The Employer gives you a reference letter which states among other things:
(1) How long the employer is prepared to release this employee for (if they say less than 2 weeks, the employer is out of order!)
The canny employer will just state âtwo weeks release given - no release given for cases expected to last longer!â
(2) What is the difference between the two weekâs pay the employer got most recently, not including optional overtime, and the wage the same employee will get whilst they are sitting in the courtroom for their tenure.
My employer stated in that letter âHeâll get docked his night shift money, his contract overtime (which DOES count!), and his driving money!â Effectively meaning Iâd be on flat indoor day rate. Since the two weeks prior to the case had me cramming the contract shifts (Yes, to give myself a higher âscratchâ mark!), that difference was quite a bit! The difference is paid NET (so you gain the unpaid tax on it straight away!) as an âexpense chequeâ rather than as a reduction on oneâs tax form. Not being SE at the time, it might well be the case that they are expected to submit expenses via their tax forms, rather than get the compensation cheque as I did on FT employed.
You do hear of Self-Employed people, especially one-man-bands that canât wait for it all to end, and even try and wriggle out of it because they are so out of pocket! This of course risks contempt of court charges, and that in turn might involve being jailed! Donât go there!
You also get a transport & meal allowance of a few quid on top of that, which is pretty much all the unemployed jurors get. 
In the end, I did quite alright out of it, because thereâs a big difference between perm. nights with maxed-out OT (no WTD in the early 90âs right?) and a flat week on days, which was how the difference is calculated. You MUST have that covering letter from the employer though! 
You get months of notice before being required to attend for jury service, and some people do get called more than once in their lifetimes. 
Donât fear it, but embrace it! It neednât be a boring experience, and definitely not an unprofitable one!
Itâs like being paid a crammed week of tramping/nights, tax free, whilst youâre on a 10-4 shift FFS!
No doubt some will think this is âDodgy geezer winseer claiming every penny heâs entitled to as usualâ but thatâs always been me, and I make no apologies for it. 
last time i was on trial, i had no say about who was on the jury.
it didnât bother me though, i was found not guilty on the third day.
Muckaway:
Doing the bible thing is a no no for me too. Making a promise while touching a book of fairy tales ffs.
You wouldnât have to. You make an affirmation like thisâŚ
I solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will faithfully try the defendant and give a true verdict according to the evidence.
Muckaway:
Juddian:
Yes, if i felt unable to judge someone fairly due to my job or beliefs i would ask to be excused.The word is Duty, and should be taken seriously.
I canât help but think ââ â â â â â â â â to duty, especially if it cuts my wages; Or do they compensate you fully? I couldnât afford to be on a long trial f they just pay expenses.
Letâs hope you never get the call then Nathan as the request to attend is usually non negotiable. Itâs your âDutyâ mate.
limeyphil:
if you was picked for jury duty, and a fellow truck driver came in accused of something like tachograph fraud, overloading, smuggling, speeding on a single carriageway, or plane old tachograph offences.
would you listen to all the evidence, and then make your decision? or just find him not guilty because you know what heâs up against, and youâve probably done one of the above yourself?
If you just find him not guilty you have no right doing jury duty. I think youâll find it is perjury and thats an offence.
Pat Hasler:
limeyphil:
if you was picked for jury duty, and a fellow truck driver came in accused of something like tachograph fraud, overloading, smuggling, speeding on a single carriageway, or plane old tachograph offences.
would you listen to all the evidence, and then make your decision? or just find him not guilty because you know what heâs up against, and youâve probably done one of the above yourself?If you just find him not guilty you have no right doing jury duty. I think youâll find it is perjury and thats an offence.
how will they know?
If a defendant objects to a Juror, then itâs up to them to know their rights, and pass a bit of paper to their brief and bring the matter up before the swear-in.
This assumes that it is for a reason other than âI know themâ, as the chances are the Juror themselves will pipe up and get themselves excluded before you get chance to object in this case. Jurors are informed of THEIR rights in the booklets available in the pool room, which Iâd advise anyone on jury service to take the trouble to read. 
Thereâs been plenty of cases where Jurors have been objected to on the grounds that they are seen as a different class, creed, colour, or even on what newspaper they read! A guy charged with â â â â is perfectly entitled to object to jurors being female, or even guardian readers for example!
For Atheists, a card is held up with the words of affirmation on it. When the person is about to be sworn in, they are expected to announce âI affirmâ at the point the bible is otherwise going to be passed to them. The bible will then be put aside, and the affirmation card produced instead. Cleggy was shown doing just this in the news coverage this week.
If anyone doesnât know something in court, and wants to find out - you ask the question. It ainât rocket science after all. You can throw up a mit, or write it down on a bit of paper and catch the eye of an usher. 
That being said, a lot of âfifty-fiftyâ cases get lost by the defendant because they were not aware of all the questions/objections/rights they had, because they only had a cheap brief who didnât really believe in their innocence, and couldnât be arsed to put themselves out for their charge.