The history of juries

Origins

The 1215 Magna Carta then set out further guarantees to the right to justice. This included a right to trial by your peers. This was intended to be for the nobles rather than ordinary people, to limit the King’s ability to frustrate justice, but it is the beginning of jury trials for everyone. 

Local panels to investigate crimes and come to agreed verdicts are rooted in the late Saxon period – and were first formalised in England in the 12th century.

Lord Devlin, a senior judge, wrote in 1956: “Trial by jury is more than an instrument of justice and more than a wheel of the constitution; it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives.”

How does the jury system work?

A jury is a group of 12 local, randomly selected, people who weigh up the evidence in a criminal trial to decide the verdict (guilty or innocent). Sometimes additional jurors are sworn in in case a juror realises they know someone in the case or it is a long trial where there is a risk a juror may have to drop out.  

They are given instruction about the law by a judge (the judge of the law). But they decide the facts, they are the judge of the facts. 

Types of offences

Criminal offences are decided in three ways, in order of seriousness:

Summary: A single magistrate, district judge or a panel of magistrates and district judges, give verdict.

Either way: Magistrates or defendants can choose trial by jury

Indictable: Must be tried by jury

Scotland

The Scottish system is different: there are 15 people on a jury.

Majority verdicts

The judge will ask the jury to come to a unanimous verdict. If, after some time (exactly how long will depend on how long and how complex the trial was), the jury cannot all agree on a verdict the judge will say that he is prepared to accept a majority verdict. How big the majority needs to be depends on the number of jurors¹ (some may have stepped out due to ill health, family emergencies, etc).

¹ https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/23/section/17