Juries Qualifications

• 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.