Juries help to decide the verdict in the Crown Court. However, they only hear about 1-2% of criminal cases as the majority of cases involve a guilty plea, eliminating the need for a jury.
A Crown Court jury has 12 members.
The list of jurors can be seen by the prosecution and defence. On some occasions, potential jurors should be vetted via police checks or wider background checks.
Vetting should also be used in exceptional cases involving national security or terrorism.
s5 Juries Act 1974 means that a whole jury can be challenged on the belief they are unrepresentative or biased. This is "to the array".
You can also challenge for cause, meaning that you challenge the right of an individual juror to sit on the jury.
The qualifications for a jury is set out in Juries Act 1974:
Between 18 and 75
Registered as a voter
Ordinarily a resident in the UK for 5 years.
People are permanently disqualified from jury service if they have been sentences to:
Imprisonment for life
Detention under His Majesty's pleasure
Imprisonment/Detention for public protection
A term of imprisonment/detention for a term of five years or more.
They can also be disqualified for 10 years if:
At any time they have served a sentence of imprisonment
Had a suspended sentence passed on them
At any time had a community sentence.
Anyone currently on bail is also disqualified.
A judges may discharge a person for lack of capacity if they:
Suffer from a mental illness resulting in attending hospital
Not understanding English adequately
Having a disability which makes them unable like blindness.
Since 2022, a deaf juror way now sit with a BSL interpreter if the judge deem this appropriate.
Blind people cannot go into jury service because it means they can't see any potential evidence needed.
Court may also grant excusal if there is a good reason like:
Illness
Being a mother with a small baby
Upcoming examinations
The jury service will then also be deferred to a later date.
Names for jury members are selected at random by a computer from the electoral register for that area.
Jurors are divided into groups of 15 and allocated to a courtroom. The clerk will then select 12 at random. At this point, both prosecution and defence will have certain rights to challenge one or more of the jurors.
Juries are used in around 30,000 cases a year and they decide the guilty or not guilty verdict.
They use a private room to discuss the case facts and they must come to a unanimous decision, which must then be accepted by the judge.
If, after two hours, the jury have not reached a unanimous verdict, the judge can direct the jury to a majority verdict. This has been allowed since 1967 and about 20% of jury convictions are majority verdict.