It’s mainly because of my job, I think. I’m a lawyer and a lot of lawyers (including myself) aren’t too keen on picking lawyer jurors. For understandable reasons imo.
Though they would be the few people actually qualified for that job^^. It will never not baffle me how in the USA, they just let random people decide on someone's fate, even if they know nothing about the justice system.
Just common law countries (Anglosphere). So USA, UK, Australia, and Canada, with possibly a couple more countries added in. Most other countries don't use juries, or do so only exceptionally.
People charged with a Indictable offence are tried in crown court with a judge and a jury of 12, the jury decides if they are guilty or not and the judge decides the sentence
People charged with a summary offence are tried in magistrate court. a Magistrate court has a a panel of 3 magistrates they decide whether or not the person is guilty and they decide the sentence. A magistrate is not a judge, they have no legal training and are members of the public like members of a jury would be
I think people may equate the magistrates to be a panel of judges but they are not. Its just members of the public and only for what aew effectivily misdeaminours
Essentially its a jury of 3 or a jury of 12
The jury of 3 for the low level crimes also decide the sentence whereas the jury of 12 for high level crimes do not
Ok it is possible in some occasions for low level crimes instead of it being 3 magistrates it is a single district judge
I'm British. They're still done. I live in constant fear of being called up for jury duty and a trial drags on for long enough that I miss my clinical placements and have to remediate
The UK has Magistrates' Court with a panel of 3 volunteers + a trained legal advisor (or sometimes 1 paid judge), which might be what you're thinking of? That's used for (generally) less serious crimes as magistrates can't sentence someone to more than 12 months in prison (though there's talk about changing that atm), so serious crimes are tried in the Crown Court which does have juries.
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u/Reesewithoutaspoon2 Jul 16 '26
It’s mainly because of my job, I think. I’m a lawyer and a lot of lawyers (including myself) aren’t too keen on picking lawyer jurors. For understandable reasons imo.