>
> In the last parliament the government tried to pass the measure,
> principally for complicated cases, such as frauds, which can last
> for months. The Lords rejected the bill, and it fell.
>
> Nothing as yet been said about bringing the bill back but the Home
> Secretary, whose responsibility the bill was, has been replaced. This
> wasn't directly because of his proposal on juries, he was moved
> sideways when the Foreign Secretary was demoted, but his replacement
> may choose to pursue different priorities.
>
> I couldn't say if ill-educated juries are a real problem, but if they
> are it would be better to vet the jurors for competence than to
> abolish them.
>
Interesting. In the US while jury duty is pretty universal in REALLY high
profile cases (OJ Simpson for example) it's almost impossible to find an
"unbiased" jury, because nearly everyone in the country had been talking
about the case. That left you with people who got all their news from
trashy daytime talk shows, never read the papers, never watched real news
programs or read much of anything for that matter. In other words, the
least educated people and the ones who had no idea what things like "DNA
evidence" meant.
Kristin
