Jury Misconduct !

The law is very clear on what is to happen when someone is charged with a serious offence. They are deemed " innocent until proved guilty " and guilt needs to be proven by a jury of twelve of their peers.  The duty of a judge in such a trial is to adjudicate both the prosecution and the defence to ensure that the trial conduct is within the tenets of the law.

In most Australian jurisdictions the jury pool is randomly selected from all who appear on the electoral roll.  Both the defence and the prosecution lawyers have the right to " challenge " and discard individual jurors without giving any reason and this process proceeds until a jury of twelve men and women have been selected for the trial.

Judges admonish the jury to make their decision solely on the evidence presented and not discuss the case with either the media or outside interests and in serious cases the law required a guilty decision to be unanimous.  In some instances a majority verdict will now be accepted.

The Facebook phenomenon has caused the states highest court to order an investigation into a recent trial because one of the jurors chose to post a comment on that media a day before the trial on which he was sitting reached a verdict.  His comment suggested that " sex predators should be put down like dogs " and it is believed that this juror  was related by marriage to a complainant in a second trial who claimed this same defendant assaulted her.

It is customary for the judge to ask jurors  being empanelled for a trial if they have strong views or any association with the people involved in the trial and this juror should have been excluded on those grounds.  It is now highly likely that an appeal will result in the conviction being set aside and the case may be retried with the renewal of costs imposed on both the prosecution and the defence,

It is now common for defendants to ask for the case to be heard by a judge sitting without the presence of a jury.  There is a trust that the judge will be impartial whereas the jury may be swayed by both public feeling and the attention that type of crime is getting in the media.  In some cases, the technical evidence presented may be well beyond the ability of ordinary men and women to fully understand and better handled by a judge.

The notion of conviction by an impartial jury is full of peril.  We humans are haunted by our phobias and those with strong moral or religious beliefs have problems disassociating them from what the law determines is legal in this country.  Many potential jurors find that their moral compass differs greatly from how the law has evolved in recent times.

Perhaps this struggle is exemplified by Israel Folau.   This Wallabies star is about to walk away from the fame and fortune his undoubted talent is capable of delivering on the playing field because he can not except the legal tolerance of homosexuality that applies to others in his playing code.   He has taken to making outbursts that are not acceptable to the games administration and this may force the parting of the ways.

It does suggest that this morally changing, highly vocal media world no longer delivers the impartiality that was the key note of the jury system. At least the decision of a learned judge is framed within the statutes of the law as they apply.  The jury of today works within parameters that were unheard of when this jury system was first conceived.