Those who have already served on a jury are more likely than the wider public to say they would rather do than avoid jury service, and trust a jury rather than a judge with deciding their guilt
Key takeaways
- 23% of Britons say they have been called for jury duty, including 12% who say they ended up on a case that went all the way through to delivering a verdict
- 60% say their jury service made them feel positively about the criminal justice system in Britain
- Jurors are more likely to say they would want to have a jury decide if they were innocent (67%) than the public as a whole are (54%)
- 10% of jurors believe their jury gave the wrong verdict
Justice secretary David Lammy announced this week that jury trials are to be restricted to cases where guilty offenders would be likely to receive a sentence of more than three years. Defendants in lesser cases would in future have their guilt or innocence decided by a judge alone.
The move is an attempt to clear the backlog of 78,000 court cases in England and Wales, with the situation so bad that a suspect charged with an offence today would potentially not be tried until 2030. Lammy suggested that rising caseloads could result in justice being denied to more victims, which risked trust in the system collapsing.
Initial reports had suggested that the sentencing cut-off for a jury trial would be set at five years, with a recent YouGov poll finding the public split 41% to 36% on whether they would support such a change.
Critics are condemning the proposals, however, with Riel Karmy-Jones KC, chair of the Criminal Bar Association saying they “threaten to destroy justice as we know it”, while Labour peer and human rights barrister Helena Kennedy said “juries work – they do their job superbly, and without bias. Juries have not caused the backlog”.
While their opportunity to do so may be diminished in the near future, how do Britons feel about the prospect of serving on a jury? A newly released YouGov study of almost 8,000 Britons conducted last year shows that the public are split over the prospect of having to do jury duty: 32% seem to relish the idea, saying it is something they would rather do, while 33% would prefer to avoid it. Three in ten (31%) have no strong feelings either way.
Desire to serve on a jury differs notably by education level – while those with a university degree tend to say it is something they would rather do (39%) than avoid (26%), the opposite is true for those whose top qualifications are GCSE-level or lower, with 43% preferring not to serve on a jury compared to 23% who would actively want to do so.
How many Britons say they have ever served on a jury?
Close to one in four Britons (23%) say they’ve been called up for jury service, although this includes only 12% who were selected to sit on a trial that went all the way through to delivering a verdict. This latter group amounts to almost 1,000 respondents, whom we asked further about their experience as a juror.
The majority of jurors served on only one trial (63%), with a further 28% having served on two, and 9% saying they have served on three or more. (Note that for the following questions, those jurors who had served on more than one case were asked to answer based on their most recent experience).
While the nightmare jury scenario is being called to serve on a complex long-running case – the UK record was set in 2017 with a 20 month property fraud trial – most jurors say their trial lasted less than a week (57%), with 32% serving for between one and two weeks – just 2% say their trial lasted longer than four weeks.
Seven in ten jurors consider the crime that the defendant was accused of to have been serious, with 23% describing it as “very serious” and 47% as “fairly serious”. Around three in ten (28%) feel the case they presided over was “not very serious” or “not at all serious”.
Do jurors think they got the verdict right?
We all have to trust that a jury of our peers can correctly judge evidence laid before them and reach the right conclusion. Nevertheless, one in ten (10%) Britons who served on a jury that delivered a verdict believe that the incorrect judgement was made.
Juries in England and Wales are asked to reach a unanimous verdict – that is to say that all 12 members agree that the defendant is guilty or not guilty. If they are not able to, then the judge will allow a ‘qualified majority’ verdict of at least 10 people. In Scotland, juries are slightly larger (15) and verdicts are decided by a simple majority vote.
While 85% of those who have ever delivered a verdict as a jury member are satisfied that they got the decision right, the data shows that a reduced rate of 64% of jurors say that the verdict was unanimous, while 27% say it was not unanimous.
Was being on a jury a positive experience?
Various findings from the survey suggest that jurors tend to come away with a positive impression of the experience.
Most jurors (60%) say that they felt positively about the justice system in Britain following their trial. Only 10% came away feeling negatively, although 26% had mixed feelings and 3% had no strong feelings one way or the other.
While the justice system has seen significant cuts since 2010 and is increasingly backlogged, it is worth noting that positivity is consistent across jurors regardless of how long ago their trial was.
Britons also tended to feel positively about their fellow jurors, with 54% saying so, compared to 30% who have mixed emotions and 9% who felt negatively.
They were less positive about British society, however – only 34% came off their jury feeling positively about the country at large. A similar number (39%) felt mixed, while 19% were negative and 6% had no strong feelings one way or the other.
Further evidence suggesting that jurors tend to see the experience as positive comes in their response to whether they would prefer to face a judge or a jury if they themselves were accused of a crime. Among the wider public, 54% say they would choose a jury of their peers, while 24% would rather opt for a judge. However, among those Britons who have served on jury trials that ran their full course and delivered a verdict, an increased rate of 67% say they would want the verdict to be rendered by a jury, and only 17% a judge.
Similarly, while the public in general are split 33%-32% on whether jury service is something they would rather do or avoid, among those who have already served on a jury trial to completion 44% say serving again is something they would rather carry out than avoid (26%).
Results tables coming shortly
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Photo: Getty
