Juries In Australia Essay

1356 Words3 Pages

Is trial by jury still relevant and appropriate?

Section 80 of the Australian Constitution contains a provision that states that “the trial of indictment of any offence...shall be by jury” (Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act), with some semblance of juries in Australia existing since the years following the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. These “juries” were “comprised of six military officers… sitting with a military judicial officer, the Judge-Advocate” (Chesterman, 1999) and the notion of juries has since developed into the familiar bench of six and twelve members in civil and criminal cases, respectively (Supremecourt.vic.gov.au, n.d.). Questions concerning the relevancy and suitability of juries in regard to their role in …show more content…

The evaluation of these factors is significant given the discourse surrounding the questions of reform to the jury system and whether juries are relevant at all.

The notion of being tried by a jury of one’s peers is arguably an intrinsic aspect of the jury system, with Section 80 of the Australian Constitution being “based on a provision contained in the United States' Constitution, which in turn rests on the philosophy that people… are entitled to have their guilt or innocence determined by … their peers” (Information and Research Services, 1997). Mark Israel (1998) comments on how, in Australia and New Zealand, indigenous people “seem to have only a very minor involvement in trials as jurors” despite “overrepresentation in trials as defendants”, later citing a 1984 case in Derby, Western Australia in which an all-white jury was empanelled in a town comprised of 60% Aboriginal inhabitants. Furthermore, Israel (1998) cites a research …show more content…

This has, however, been recently challenged as greater research has been conducted. According to Schweitzer and Saks (2007) “CSI viewers were more critical of the forensic evidence presented at the trial, finding it less believable” whilst also “express[ing] more confidence in their verdicts than non-viewers”, but later go on to state that “viewers of general crime programs ... did not differ significantly from their non-viewing counterparts … suggesting that skepticism toward the forensic science testimony was specific to those whose diet consisted of heavy doses of forensic science television programs”. Professor Tom R. Tyler is quoted in Schweitzer and Saks (2007) stating that “no existing empirical research shows that [the CSI effect] actually occurs”. This stance is similarly mirrored in other research papers on the topic, including Tyler (2006) which states that “there is no direct research evidence that watching CSI has changed juror standards of reasonable doubt.” Baskin and Sommers (2010) further suggest that the personality characteristics of jurors, such as authoritarianism and narcissism, ease of being influenced, and

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