and please read the comments section.

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/rape-jur...&linkId=42103084

Easier read Cut and Pasted

www.kingofhits.co.uk/content/view/1223/37/

That's very interesting, but also quite alarming. I wonder how the juries of today compare with those of the past and whether any similar research into juries was carried out in the past.

I suspect no; research into past juries has not been carried out and yes; many old verdicts are unsafe. I know mine were. When I was in Her Majesty's Estate - for 3.5 years of a 7 year sentence - I met literally dozens of innocent, wrongly convicted men and was happily able to assist 12 of them get acquitted on appeal, through reading Deps and spotting flaws and contradictions.

I'm always surprised at how cheerful you come across online. I'd have assumed that an experience like that would make a person very bitter and angry.

Bitterness tends to affect my digestion so I avoid it like the plague; thank God for Gaviscon. Angry? Oh yes; I've been fuming for 17 years about the broken judicial system; mainly on behalf of others. After all; I deliberately chose to break the law as a teenager, considering it absurd that females were legally able to make decisions on their sex lives at 16; men not at all and, after 1967, only when 21 or 18 - until 2000 when, days after my arrest, the ages of consent were finally equalised.

The author of this comment, "Exceptio," is thinking along the right lines

[the jury] should be unceremoniously dumped and all cases heard by trained judges who would have to give written reasons for their decisions and conclusions which should be supported by the law, the application of the law to the facts and must be rational. Appeals could then be based on the stated reasons.

The trouble is there's an issue of lack of independence where an individual is prosecuted by the state and the people who decide guilt or innocence are employees of the state.

I favour a requirement for the jury to give a reasoned judgement. If the reasoning is bollocks, that would be grounds for appeal.

<<< Researchers conducting mock rape trials found that a juror’s educational background had significant implications for the verdict >>>

why do you seem surprised?

applies to everything they do .... voting in elections / deciding Brexit etc etc

Educational background pays a significant part in everyone's lives - and if they don;t have the capacity why should they be allowed a vote???

I think that is fair; and a reason why I don't believe democracy works anymore. I know from my own professional life; give them enough simple, basic reasons to like something and they will. Bright colours work. Just look at the history of advertising!

The jury system is equally broken but Randall is right; when lawyers, police, CPS, Judges are also paid by the state, they are no longer Independent. And the quality of brains shrinks too. So you get weak minded, poorly educated, underpaid individuals running society. No wonder we are all rushing to the cliff edge.

JK2006 wrote:
I think that is fair; and a reason why I don't believe democracy works anymore. I know from my own professional life; give them enough simple, basic reasons to like something and they will. Bright colours work. Just look at the history of advertising!

The jury system is equally broken but Randall is right; when lawyers, police, CPS, Judges are also paid by the state, they are no longer Independent. And the quality of brains shrinks too. So you get weak minded, poorly educated, underpaid individuals running society. No wonder we are all rushing to the cliff edge.

I am pretty sure that advertising works just as well on the supposedly most intelligent as the supposedly thick.