Reading Time: 7 minutes In the first part of this discussion about juries,I explained some basic points: why we have jury trials and how we decide who should be on a jury. Now, I will discuss some of the more controversial aspects to juries, and will focus on three areas: the costs of (including delays associated with) jury trials […]
Transparency Around Jurors and Verdicts Would Help Trial Fairness
Reading Time: 7 minutes To many observers, the verdict in the Gerald Stanley trial was wholly unsatisfactory. From the outside, an acquittal in the shooting death of the 22-year-old Cree man Colten Boushie seemed unthinkable: he had been shot in the back of the head, while sitting unarmed in a vehicle. The trial became a referendum on the justice […]
The Lack of Representation of Indigenous People in Canadian Juries
Reading Time: 5 minutes Earlier this year, the acquittal of Gerald Stanley in R. v. Stanley, 2018 SKQB 27 (“R. v. Stanley”) sparked important discussions on the Canadian criminal justice system and Indigenous peoples’ experiences within this system. Specifically, this decision sparked a discussion on the representation of Indigenous peoples on Canadian juries. What happened in R v Stanley? […]
Canadian Jurors Need Mental Health Support
Reading Time: 4 minutes Former juror Mark Farrant has observed that jury service is the last mandatory form of service since the abolition of military subscription. Each year thousands of Canadians are called to perform this last mandatory form of civic duty. Jurors play an integral role in the administration of justice in Canada, often at a significant personal […]
Juries as the Great Democratic Hope of the Criminal Trial
Reading Time: 6 minutes The greatest lawyer of the ancient world, Cicero, proclaimed that where there is life, there is hope. It seems to me that one can adapt that saying to the inspiration for retaining the right to a jury trial in the modern world, despite all the potential hazards that individual juries might present to the accused […]
Why do We Have Jury Trials?
Reading Time: 7 minutes Juries. To some, it may seem bizarre that 12 laypersons, untrained in the law, would be asked – required – to come into a courtroom and listen to the recounting of events about which they know nothing, involving people with whom they have no familiarity, and then make a decision about whether someone has committed […]
