Advantages and Disadvantages of Lay people
- Created by: Shannon Cunningham
- Created on: 12-05-14 14:14
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- Advantages and Disadvantages of lay people
- Representative
- Juries are representatives of the general population. Magistrates are not as representative as juries but more than judges.
- Confidence
- Public have confidence in juries and magistrates as ordinary members of the public. Juries are unlikely to become case hardened as they usually only sit for 2 weeks.
- Local knowledge
- Magistrates and Juries have knowledge of the local area and so therefore are understanding of the local issues.
- Bias
- Magistrates are criticised for being prosecution minded
- Juries have high acquittal rates - 60% in crown compared to only 20% in magistrates court
- Unrepresentative
- Magistrates are not representative in terms of age and tend to be middle-class professionals or retired people
- Inconsistency
- there are geographical inconsistence in sentencing- magistrates in some areas impose harsher sentences than magistrates elsewhere
- Secrecy
- Juries make their decisions in secret, As such, it is not known how they reach their decisions or whether they have understood the relevant law
- Representative
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