Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Honesty not encouraged among British jurors
A juror told a court his homophobic and racist views meant he could not give a defendant a fair trial.
In a letter written to the judge after he was selected from a shortlist to serve in a case, the man claimed his extreme views 'against homosexuals and black/foreign people' made it impossible for him to be impartial.
Last night an investigation was under way after the judge reluctantly agreed to dismiss him from the jury and referred the case to the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve.
The letter was made public after he was selected to serve on an assault and dangerous driving trial at Southampton Crown Court. Presiding Judge Gary Burrell QC read his note out in open court.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has since been taken off the jury and threatened with prosecution for contempt of court.
This is because Judge Burrell said he could not be sure if he had written the letter just to get out of it.
The man, who was escorted from the court, was warned he now faced prosecution under the Contempt of Court act for failing to serve on a jury.
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18 comments:
The wank should know better. If you don't have liberty, don't behave like you do.
It's a good point. How much will people have to document their biases to get out of jury duty?
Who's advantage does it play to in the trial to force someone who doesn't want to be on jury duty to sit?
I'm not at all surprised to see that honesty in Britain is now considered a crime. It will obviously join other things that seem to have been outlawed, such as common sense, logic, rational thought, and the freedom to think for ones self.
Human nature being what it is, a person forced to serve on a jury will almost always take out their displeasure on those who force him/her to serve, the state.
Even juries are getting so PC its getting quite rediculous
I'm not sure how it works elsewhere, but here in the good old U.S. of A., when I was summoned for jury duty, the judge asked many, many questions of the jury pool to determine if any would be disqualified. In fact, the simple question of "is there anything else that could disqualify you from this case?" was the last question asked of all jurors. Assuming the background of the case was sufficiently stated by the judge, bias such as that held by this juror would have very likely been found very quickly.
Of course it is on the shoulder of the juror to come forward with any issue. If this juror was not honest during the jury selection, he should be held accountable for his actions. If information that would have otherwise biased him was not put forth in the jury selection, then he should be afforded the opportunity to be dismissed.
Another Orwellian example on this site of :- "What happens in the US, GOOD" - "What (similar) thing happens the UK, BAD"!
A new law in Great Britain is working its way through Parliament that aims to redefine a number of words, a few of which are:
up will become down;
good will become bad;
happy will become sad;
day will become night.
Gay will remain the same, a noun that defines a homo.
How can he be in.trouble for not serving on a jury? He was removed from the jury. If I was a member of one of the groups he mentioned I wouldn't want him on the jury whether or not he really felt the way he said. Someone who would lie to get out of jury duty is not a trustworthy person.
2:22,
Why so hypersensitive? He was merely describing how jurors are weeded out here in the US and wondering why someone with those extreme views would end up on a jury.
@2:22
Yeah, right - OJ going free was really wonderful. But I guess he probably would have been made King in Norway.
Anon 2:22 AM, the US jury system is not perfect, but stops are put in place to weed out these kinds of issues. Such stops are either not in place in the UK, they were ignored by the judge, the judge was not clear with his instructions, or the juror did not comply with the judge's instructions.
Serious question, why are liberals allowed around children?
http://portlandtribune.com/pt-rss/9-news/114604-schools-beat-the-drum-for-equity
Better question, why do we let them live?
Stating that you are 'biased against all races' is a fairly common joke for getting out of jury duty and IIRC was used on Seinfeld.
I struggle to see the likelihood of this prosecution going ahead but I think someone wanted to send a message about trying to dodge your civic duty.
Sadly I always wanted to serve on a jury. I never got to and now can't because of my profession.
Better question, why do we let them live?
More importantly, why does Jon allow such obvious "fake conservative" comments on his web site?
Murder is NOT a conservative value.
"why does Jon allow such obvious "fake conservative" comments on his web site?"
Nice spin.
So in fact just like I said : excuses for what happens in the US, but condemnation for whole countries otherwise.
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