Advantages and Disadvantages of Magistrates and Jurors
- Created by: JessicaRidley
- Created on: 15-03-16 12:13
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- Advantages and Disadvantages of Magistrates and Jurors
- Magistrates
- Advantages
- Cheaper: saves the tax payer 100m a year
- Local Knowledge: saving time by not having to explain the location of an incident.
- Paul v DPP: Magistrates knew kerb-crawling had become a problem in their area.
- Availability: 29,000 magistrates in the UK
- Public Confidence: the public have a lot of confidence in magistrates.
- Disadvantages
- Biased: Magistrates will invariably get to know police officers.
- Bingham Justices ex parte Jowitt: "my principle in such cases has always been to believe the evidence of the police officer."
- Legal Advisor.
- R v Eccles, ex parte Farrelly: the legal advisor assisted in the decisions made.
- Sentencing Powers: 240 hours community service, £5000 fine and 6 months in jail.
- Biased: Magistrates will invariably get to know police officers.
- Advantages
- Jurors
- Advantages
- Reduced State Input.
- R v Ponting: a judge told the jury to convict as it was clearly what the law stated. The Jury thought it was in the public's interest to know the information.
- Moral Standpoint.
- R v Owens: jury ignored the law, decided Owens was not guilty.
- Racially balanced: Cheryl Thomas said that juries are locally representative and ethnic minorities are not under-represented.
- Reduced State Input.
- Disadvantages
- Slow.
- R v Pryce: it took 6 days with simple evidence and legal issues.
- Near misses.
- R v Grant: ******'s DNA found at every scene, defence was that the wife collected his semen and placed it at every crime scene. Majority vote - 10:2
- Juries discussions are secret.
- R v Young: jurors used a Ouija board to speak to one of the defendant's dead victims.
- Slow.
- Advantages
- Magistrates
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