Murder trial judge says jury trials are ‘best and fairest’ way of administering justice
A circuit judge at Northampton Crown Court has spoken of the importance of juries at the conclusion of a long-running murder trial.
His Honour Judge David Herbert KC said that jury trials were the ‘best and fairest way’ to administer justice.
A recent report by Sir Brian Leveson into how to ease pressure on the creaking criminal justice system recommended the introduction of non-jury trials for some cases, with a judge and two magistrates presiding over ‘intermediate courts.’ The proposals that would see some defendants lose the right to have a jury decide their fate, have been strongly opposed by the Bar Council.
Yesterday (Wednesday, November 19) Judge Herbert, who sits as a circuit judge at Northampton Crown Court, was addressing the jury of seven women and five men who had been in the Ryan Burton murder trial for eight weeks at the Lady’s Lane courthouse. The jury did not have to return verdicts because guilty pleas were accepted from all six defendants on a range of charges including murder, manslaughter, robbery and possession of a zombie knife in public.
But Judge Herbert paid tribute to the panel members after they had sat through incredibly harrowing and detailed evidence for nearly two months.
He said: “You have little choice when you receive your jury summons. But the criminal justice system relies on you as members of the public to give up your time, pull yourselves from your every day lives, turn up at court, listen to evidence, be patient when there are delays and ultimately make decisions about your peers.
"The jury system is the best and fairest way of deciding the outcome of trials.
"The alternative is me, somebody who is battle hardened by three decades in the criminal justice system. Juries bring a freshness and common sense to proceedings and that’s the way it should be.
"That’s why the criminal justice system in England and Wales is as fair as it is.”
He told them that just because the case had concluded without them having to return a verdict, it did not mean that their time had been wasted.
He said that without them there, the defendants would not have give evidence, and without them, they would not have pleaded guilty.”
Last week, Courts Minister Sarah Sackman said that the ‘time had come’ for intermediate courts to be introduced, citing the crown court backlog of 78,000 cases.