A Jury Act in New South Wales, Australia.

[John Wilson]

Dear Larry Dodge,   The NSW Jury Act 1977 No 18 is an inadequate piece of legislation with no mention of the rights and responsibilities of the jury in the administration of justice.    The reason for this email is to ask how two sections of that Act would be regarded if they appeared in legislation in the U.S.A.   The first is "Section 55C Supply of transcripts to jury: A copy of all or any part of the transcript of evidence at a trial or inquest may, at the request of the jury, be supplied to the members of the jury if the judge or coroner considers that it is appropriate and practical to do so.".   And the second is "Section 68B Disclosure of information by jurors etc: (2) A person (including a juror or former juror) shall not, for a fee, gain or reward, disclose or offer to any person information on the deliberations of a jury. Penalty: 50 penalty units ($1,000)".                                                *************************************************8   There is another section of the same Act under which a local high-profile radio announcer was convicted when a former lady jury phoned his radio program in an extremely distressed and sobbing state to complain that she had been forced by other members of that jury to change her vote (against her conscience) to return a Not Guilty verdict in a murder trial.  She said the experience had "ruined her life".   Here is the section for which Mr John Laws (announcer) was found guilty: "Section 68A Soliciting information from jurors etc  (1) A person shall not solicit information from, or harass, ajuror or former juror for the purpose of obtaining information on the deliberations of a jury for the inclusion in any material to be published or any matter to be broadcast. Penalty: In the case of a corporation, 50 penalty units; in any other case, 20 penalty units." It should also be noted that this section was amended in 1997 to delete the Penalty clause and "Insert instead: Maximum penalty on indictment: imprisonment for 7 (seven) years.".   I have been told by an observer present at the John Laws trial that the jury returned to the court to ask for the legislation but the judge told them it would only confuse them.   The sentence imposed on John Laws was "18 months suspended imprisonment". He is not a courageous individual and, in fact, apologized to the judge during the course of the trial and refused to put forward any of the Fully Informed Jury Association argument at any stage - which is consistent with his attitude when he was fined $40,000 for a previous conviction for Contempt of Court when he made comments about the character of a person accused of a diabloical murder. On that occasion when I sent him material, his secretary said "He does not want to upset the judge.".   Yours sincerely,   John Wilson.