| ▲ | sb057 7 hours ago |
| Also in the pipeline: elimination of jury trials https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2x01yne13o |
|
| ▲ | glaucon 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The first sentence of the cited article makes clear the matter at hand is not "elimination of jury trials" but "a plan to abolish some jury trials". The proposal is an attempt to reduce the time which those who are accused must wait for trial. FWIW the majority of all criminal cases in the UK are dealt with by either a single judge, or three judges[1]. This is hardly surprising as assembling a jury is vastly time consuming and for minor criminal matters is hard to justify. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_offence#United_Kingdom |
| |
|
| ▲ | infotainment 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > The proposals, which return to Parliament on Tuesday, would replace juries in England and Wales with a single judge in cases where a convicted defendant would be jailed for up to three years. Wow, this is literally the plot of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney video games. I'm sure it will go great with no downsides. |
| |
| ▲ | YawningAngel 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm a little torn on this one. On the one hand, people are bad epistemologists and lots of countries manage with similarly limited jury trials. On the other, we're doing it for cost reasons, which I think is the worst basis imaginable for such a move |
|
|
| ▲ | cryptonector 19 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| RIP, Magna Carta. |
|
| ▲ | nxm 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| What a horrible idea - your fate should never be decided by a single individual. |
| |
| ▲ | themafia 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | In the US it's just called a "bench trial." You can ask for one. It's often advantageous to do so. |
|
|
| ▲ | skajbz 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| [flagged] |
|
| ▲ | derriz 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| It's simply a fact that common law jury trials are time-consuming and expensive and cause long delays and bottlenecks in the justice system. Different common-law countries have addressed this issue in various ways. Restricting jury trials for more serious offenses (in this case for more serious charges - ones that could potentially result in a sentence of more than 3 years) is one way than many common law jurisdictions have taken. It's not ideal but it's infinitely better in my mind than the practice used in the US to reduce jury trials. To avoid the cost/expense of a jury trial, public prosecutors threatens to press for a large number of charges or some very serious charges - carrying the potential of very long sentences - a sort of Gish-gallop approach. Even if the chances of successful prosecution is relatively small for any one of the charges, the defendant is forced to take a plea-deal to avoid the risk of spending years or decades behind bars. Thus the defendant ends up with a guilty record and often a custodial sentence without any access to a trial or the chance to present their case at all. |
| |
| ▲ | tomatocracy 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The thing is, the reason for the delays and inefficiencies is not really juries. It's mostly much more mundane things like the prison service not sending defendants to court at the right time, translators not turning up when they are supposed to, buildings which are falling apart, technology not working properly, and court time being double-booked. It's an administrative failure, not a problem with the system. Alongside removing the right to trial by jury, perhaps more alarmingly the government are also planning to remove appeal rights from "minor" cases (from magistrates to the Crown Court). The current statistics are that more than 40% of those appeals are upheld. The planned changes won't fix any of these things, but it will cause fundamental damage to trust in the system and result in many miscarriages of justice. | | |
| ▲ | glaucon 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The plan is not to "remove trial by jury" but to "remove trial by jury for some types of offense". | | |
| |
| ▲ | tacticalturtle 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You probably know this - but in most jurisdictions in the US, including federal, charges have to be approved by a grand jury of your peers. There’s an old adage “a prosecutor could indict a ham sandwich”* implying that the grand jury is easily mislead - but in my anecdotal experience of serving on a grand jury - this isn’t really true. We definitely said no to overreaches. And you can also see this happening in high profile cases with the Trump administration: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/us/politics/trump-sandwic... Ignoring that, it’s not clear to me why removing jury trials would reduce the likelihood of a prosecutor throwing a larger number of charges at a defendant. Prosecutors want to demonstrate a record of convictions. That career pressure is still going to exist without jury trials - they’re going to throw anything they can and see what sticks. *Fun Fact - Sol Wachtler, the judge who coined this, was later convicted of multiple felonies, including blackmailing an ex-lover and threatening to kidnap her daughter. A bit more substantial than a ham sandwich. | | |
| ▲ | derriz 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm getting a lot of downvotes for the comment you're responding to so will likely withdraw from this discussion. But to be clear, I deliberately talked of prosecutors threatening charges, not actual indictments. Conviction through plea-bargaining is almost exclusively a phenomenon in the US. It just doesn't feature in the normal process of public prosecution in countries like Ireland, the UK or Australia. Also as an aside, the grand jury system is exclusively an American feature. And every common law country (including the US) has a bar in terms of seriousness of the crime, below which you are tried without a jury. Yes the bar is lower in the US (potential sentence of more than 6 months?) but this bar exists nonetheless without sensationalist claims that jury trials have been eliminated - which is what was stated in the comment I originally responded to. | | |
| |
| ▲ | u1hcw9nx 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | American Bar Associaton agrees. ABA Plea Bargain Task Force Report is sad read. US criminal justice system is horrific and plea bargaining is big reason for it. |
|
