Description
Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) Unreasoned Verdict: The Jurys Out by Sir Louis Blom-Cooper
The jury in its contemporary form begins effectively with its democratising by the Criminal Justice Act 1972. The first section of this book gives an historical analysis of jury trial from its early days of emergence. In its second section the book goes on to explain the essential features of the scope and nature of jury trial which unlike its counterpart in the United States demands a properly structured summing-up of the evidence with a direction to the jury to apply the relevant criminal law to the offence(s). A third section in the book then portrays the principles of criminal justice as distinctively applicable to trial by judge and jury in harmony if not in harness (as some European systems impose in mixed tribunals). The fourth section considers safeguards that are imposed or could usefully be injected into the proceedings of jury trial. The fifth and last section of the book discusses potentially viable reforms. It concludes with the assertion that given the public demand for greater transparency and better accountability of the jury in action it is necessary to reform an outdated mode of trial.