Britain: An official handbook > 1959

GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION
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aid; this is at the discretion of the court, except in the case of a person charged
with murder, who must be granted legal aid if his means are insufficient. During
his trial, the accused person or defendant has the right to hear and subsequently
to cross-examine all the witnesses for the prosecution, to call witnesses on his own
account, and to address the court. He may also give evidence in his own defence,
although he cannot be compelled so to do. Once acquitted no accused person can
ever again be charged with that particular offence in any court of law.
There are certain differences in the Scottish system, but the protection of persons
against unlawful detention and the facilities for accused persons to defend them¬
selves are similar.
The Jury System
Generally speaking, all the more serious crimes, i.e. crimes known as indictable
offences because a formal written accusation or ‘indictment’ is required for their
prosecution, must be tried in a superior court before a jury. In English law,
however, certain specified indictable offences may be dealt with instead at a
magistrates’ court if the defendant consents. Conversely a criminal case which
would ordinarily be dealt with in a magistrates’ court must usually be heard before
a jury if the offence is punishable by more than three months’ imprisonment and
the defendant elects to be so tried.
A jury consists of twelve persons duly summoned in pursuance of a precept
from the court. Most property owners and ratepayers (men and women alike) are
liable to be summoned for jury service if they are British subjects and are between
the ages of 21 and 60, unless they are disqualified as, for example, having been
convicted of an infamous crime. Members of certain professions are, however,
exempt from service, and no person can be summoned to serve on any jury more
than once in any one year unless all the jurors on the list have already been sum¬
moned to serve during that same year.
In trials by jury it is, broadly speaking, the duty of the judge to determine
questions of law, including questions as to the admissibility of the evidence, and
for the jury to decide questions of fact. In criminal cases, therefore, the jury has
to decide whether the accused has been proved guilty by the evidence placed
before it; if it finds the defendant guilty, sentence is passed by the judge. The
judge sums up the evidence for the benefit of the jury, but never accompanies the
jury when it retires to consider its verdict. The verdict of a jury must be unanimous;
if its members are unable to reach agreement, the case must be retried before a
new jury. Members of the jury are completely independent of both the judiciary
and the executive. Moreover, although both the prosecution and the defence have
the right, before the trial opens, to object to any member of the jury on the ground
of his lack of impartiality, once members have been sworn in they are free from
interference of any kind, even if, as sometimes happens, they bring in a verdict in
apparent contradiction to the summing up of the judge. It is an offence to assault,
threaten or attempt to corrupt a juryman either before or during a trial.
Procedure under Scottish law differs from the foregoing in a number of important
respects; notably, the verdict may be by a bare majority of the jury (which in
Scotland consists of fifteen persons in criminal cases and twelve in civil cases) and,
in addition to ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’, may also be given as ‘not proven’; this last
verdict (which does not exist in English law) involves acquittal in the same way as
‘not guilty’.
In England and Wales, either party may insist on trial by jury in civil courts in
cases involving claims for defamation, malicious prosecution, false imprisonment,
seduction, breach of promise to marry, or fraud; other civil cases are tried by jury