What are the Disadvantages of Juries?

In my last blog post, we looked at the use of juries and their advantages. In this week’s blog post, we will be staying on the topic of juries but instead considering the disadvantages. Nevertheless, there are still many benefits of juries, such as the fact they are randomly selected and so should be representative of the population as a whole. Deliberations are conducted in secrecy, so the jury should be able to come to a decision free of any bias. They are also not bound by legal precedents or principles, so they are free to decide based on what they feel is fair. However, as stated above, there are also disadvantages, which we will look at in more detail now.

One disadvantage of juries is the same as one of the advantages – they do not have to follow a set guide when coming to their decision. Instead, they can use their discretion and give an outcome that they think is fair. In some ways, this is good, as it allows for flexibility in the law and for morals to come into play. However, this then makes the law highly subjective and two defendants with very similar cases could end up with different outcomes. This is very unfair for defendants, as there is no way of predicting the law and they are not all treated the same, so there is no consistency.

Similarly, although the secrecy of the decision-making process for juries is an advantage because it allows them to debate free of pressure, it can also be a disadvantage. As no-one except the jury knows what goes on while they are deliberating, there is no way for their decisions to be evaluated or challenged. There is never a rationale or reason given, so it is difficult to know whether their decisions are fair or not. There may be some questionable outcomes, but there could be an explanation for this – there’s no way of telling from the outside. In this way, jury secrecy can actually harm the judicial process, making it less transparent and less consistent.

Likewise, jury equity allows juries to come to their own decision based on their own ethics, ignoring precedents. This can avoid some absurd outcomes; however, it can also create them. Sometimes this might work out well, at other times, it can backfire and lead to perverse decisions. There is also the issue of whether a jury should be given this sort of power at all. Essentially, they can choose to ignore law that has been made by elected representatives in Parliament and by judges in courts, even though they have no legal training or democratic authority, i.e., they are not elected. This can be seen as unjust or unfair to defendants.

Another disadvantage of juries is that they can be biased. As they are selected randomly from across the whole population, there is a strong possibility that some of them will have prejudices that affect their views on the trial. In theory, this should be balanced out by the other members of the jury, giving a cross-section of the population that averages out biases. In reality, random selection could lead to all jury members having similar prejudices, making it an unfair trial. It is perfectly possible to have a jury of all one race or gender or who all have a similar background, which means that it cannot be representative of the population as a whole.

A further issue with juries is that they will not always have the required understanding of more complex issues to give a sound verdict. For example, in complex fraud cases with years of investigation behind them, it is not that easy for a jury to understand just coming into it with no previous knowledge or training. While a jury will have a legal advisor, they can only give facts that the jury must then interpret. Even if the jury is given all the knowledge necessary, they cannot learn all of this to an expert level during the trial. This can lead to them interpreting evidence incorrectly or drawing the wrong conclusions, giving the trial an unfair outcome.

In addition, there is always the risk of jury tampering. This occurs when jury members are influenced to vote in a particular way by underhand methods. For example, it may be that some jury members are bribed to use their vote to sway the outcome of the trial. Alternatively, they may be threatened into voting a certain way. Either way, it results in an unfair trial and can present a risk for jurors.

Finally, jury service is compulsory. This can result in the jurors resenting having to be there and not giving the case their full attention or engaging with it. If they do not take their role seriously, there is the risk that they will just vote for whatever seems quickest or not fully consider their decision, meaning that case results are unfair.

Wrapping Up

I hope that you now feel more confident about the advantages and disadvantages of juries. In my next blog post, we will be looking at how jurors are selected, so come back in two weeks for that!

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