Juries Activity
The Process Of Being Summoned For Jury Duty
Juries are an important part of our legal system. They date back to medieval England when villagers were given the opportunity to pass judgment on their peers. Jurors (members of a jury) are drawn at random from the electoral role. A summons (a special letter from the court) is sent to the person selected telling them when to come to court for jury duty. A jury for a criminal trial has 12 members and their role is to decide whether an accused person is guilty of a crime. The jury must be satisfied that the evidence presented to them shows that the person is guilty beyond reasonable doubt. This means that if a juror has some doubt about the accused person’s guilt, then the juror must find the accused not guilty of the charges.
Juries are used in all criminal trials for an indictable offence. In NSW the jury must have a unanimous verdict, however if the jury has been thinking about the verdict for more than eight hours than the judge can accept an 11-1 guilty verdict (Jury Act 1977 s55F).
Civil juries are not very common in NSW and are usually only seen in defamation cases. A civil jury is usually only 4 people, but it can be up to 12.
Usually there will be approximately thirty people who have been sent a summons to appear in court but not everyone will be selected to actually be a jury member. Go to the website and play the jury game. See how good you would be at selecting a jury that would help your client.Once you finish playing, write down your highest score in the diamond below.
The Role Of Juries
Juries are very controversial, there are arguments about whether to have a jury, then there are arguments about who should be able to be a juror, and in criminal trials there are arguments about whether a guilty verdict should be unanimous or not.
Read ‘arguments for and against the jury system’. In the space provided write which argument you find the most persuasive and why.
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Think about the article above, do you think that removing the automatic exemption for lawyers, ex judges, carers, pregnant women and people over 70 is a good idea? Use the T Chart below to explain why you agree and/or disagree with legal changes.
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Ms Giveen Year 10 Commerce created by K. Hamilton Ingleburn High School2013