Do Juries Reflect our Moral and Ethical Standards?

The use of juries, to a large extent, reflects the moral and ethical standards of the community, although in some circumstances these standards are not met as they are ever-changing. The purpose of juries, is to be a public representation in terms of judging the guilt of an offender; “they reflect the historic right of an accused person to be judged, impartially, by a group of their peers, based on evidence presented at a trial” (Cambridge 2013, p. 59). This means that the general community’s opinions are reflected through the jurors and hence the use of juries in the legal system should, to a large extent, reflect the community’s census of moral and ethical standards. Juries, although supposed to be a pure cross-section of society, do not always reflect such standards. This is due to several issues, with one of them being the use of a peremptory challenge. Although the challenge is used to reduce bias in the courtroom – with a cap on the numbers of jurors to be disqualified – such a reduction in bias means that a true representation of society is not being met, with such bias being a reflection on the community’s view on certain issues.

Juries also consist usually of 12 jurors, which is a larger proportion of the population that needs to be convinced meaning a more thorough decision can be made than compared to a judge only decision where only one person would need to be convinced. This reflects the moral and ethical standards of the community, with a higher threshold of conviction, meaning that a fairer judgement may be seen in court.

Legislation surrounding the use of juries in the court system has changed as well, reflecting the change in moral and ethical standards. Following the case of R v Burrell [2006] NSWSC 581, majority verdicts on the basis of Judges’ discretion, can be used in all criminal trials – introduced in The Jury Amendment (Verdicts) Act 2006 NSW. This means that only 11 jurors need to be convinced – with a judge’s discretion – for the threshold to be passed. To a large extent, this reflects a change in attitude to unanimous verdicts. “Rogue Jurors”, generally, do not represent the wider beliefs of the community and hence the omission of this vote would allow the use of jurors to better reflect community standards. However, in an AAP article published in 2005, titled “NSW to introduce majority jury verdicts” it is reported that “NSW will introduce 11-1 majority verdicts in all criminal jury trials, despite a new Law Reform Commission Report warning against this move”. It is suggested that “studies showed juries which had to make unanimous verdicts considered evidence more carefully and thoroughly”. Although, the article also shows community support for the reform “As the NSW opposition and the Victims of Crime Assistance League (VCAL) welcomed the change”. This shows, that although the Law Reform Comission believe that a more through and careful judgement is made when a unanimous decision is required, the general community’s moral and ethical standards towards unanimous verdicts have changed with the belief it is not necessary in certain cases, as reflected by the introduction of the statute law.


The threshold for deciding the guilt as determined by the law, is that jurors need to find that the offender is ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ guilty. However this phrase is very ambiguous, with the NSW Law Reform Commission Review of directions Judges give Juries stating that “this position is exacerbated by the general prohibition in Australia against any explanation of the expression”. A Sydney Morning Herald Article published in 2013 labelled “Jurors need more direction – report”, details the complexities of this legal term, along with the report, stating that “In NSW, if a jury requests clarification on what “beyond reasonable doubt” means, judges can only explain that they are “ordinary, everyday words and that is how you should understand them”. This lack of clarification and direction given to jurors means that moral and ethical standards cannot be completely achieved in the legal system which is so reliant on the jury system for convictions as jurors would not be able to understand their role and hence would not be able to properly determine the guilt of the accused.

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