Juries are an essential component of Queensland’s criminal justice system. However, the current jury system in criminal law cases does not effectively meet the needs of society. This thesis is established by first examining the role that juries play in the criminal justice system and the various interests of those affected by juries. This is followed by a consideration of arguments for and against juries and reforms that may be made to the jury system. Overall, it will be seen that there are substantial reasons to reform the current system.
On one hand many critics argue that the American jury system is no longer a good idea. On the other hand, some may disagree and say the American jury system is still a good idea. According to this view, one can readily agree that the American jury system gives the people a say in what is relevant to today. “The role of jury service in promoting self-governance and civic participation...the United States Constitution viewed jury service as a critically important feature of self-governance and enshrined [guaranteed] the right to serve on juries in the Seventh Amendment” (Document C). While the essence of John Weiser is that the jury system promotes civic participation, such a stance is invalid because their judgement can be clouded. Therefore, even though the American jury system does have its benefits, the jurors choice whether the convicted should be punished can be
Should we let tyranny abound in the courts by removing juries? Certainly not. The guarantee of trial by jury was included in the Constitution in order to protect American citizens against judicial abuse of power. This protection was delineated in the Bill of Rights with the Sixth and Seventh Amendments, which promise a defendant a speedy trial and a jury in both criminal and civil cases. It is certainly possible to find fault with the system of trial by jury and specific examples of when it has failed. However, the basic protection that a jury trial provides should never be relinquished, as it is the best protection for the individual from tyrannical actions by the government.
George Orwell’s Animal Farm is, first and foremost, a political satire warning against the pursuit of utopian desires through unjust and oppressive means. Operating under the pretense of an animal fable, Orwell disparages the use of political power to poach personal freedom. He effectively alerts his readers to the dangerous price that can accompany the so-called “pursuit of progress”. And he illuminates how governments acting under the guise of increasing independence often do just the opposite: increase oppression and sacrifice sovereignty. While the cautionary theme Orwell provides proves widely applicable, in reality his novel focuses on one tale of totalitarian abuse: Soviet Russia. The parallels between the society Orwell presents in his Animal Farm and the Soviet Union – from the Russian revolution to Stalin’s supremacy – are seemingly endless. Manor Farm represents Tsarist Russia, Animalism compares to Stalinism, and Animal Farm, with the pig Napoleon at its helm, clearly symbolizes Communist Russia and Joseph Stalin. But Orwell does more than simply align fiction with fact. He fundamentally attacks Soviet Russia at its core. And in so doing he reveals how the Communist Party simply replaced a bad system with a worse one, overthrowing an imperial autocracy for a totalitarian dictatorship. This essay will demonstrate that Orwell’s Animal Farm is
Elie Wiesel in Night and Snowball from Animal Farm are very similar characters because they were victimized by tyrants and used as scapegoats, but they are also unique and individual characters because Elie knew he was being taken advantage of and Snowball did not. Animal Farm is written by George Orwell, and it is about a farm of animals that take over the farm. Napoleon, a large pig, slowly takes away food and supplies from the other animals until he starts walking on two feet and becomes a “human.” Because of him Snowball is expelled from the farm and acts as a scapegoat for everything that goes wrong on the farm. Night is an autobiography written by Elie Wiesel, and in it Elie tells the story of he was taken from his home and put into a concentration camp under the control of Adolf Hitler.
A jury is a certain number of men or women, selected by law, grouped together to decide the verdict of a case. (“What is JURY?”) They play an important role in our system of justice. In the United State a jury hears testimony and evidence of the case to determine if that is enough to move forward. Over the years the jury system has evolved immensely and has improved. Roles have become different, some roles in the jury system have been discontinued and others have been added.
Every generation has felt, at one point or another, uneasy about the efficacy of their justice system. One need not look further than a few months ago with the controversial murder trial of Casey Anthony. People were enraged by the jury’s decision to let her go. Up until today, many people are convinced that there existed enough evidence for convicting her of first-degree murder of her daughter. Can we say that today’s justice system is ineffective in administering punishment? Should people take matters in their own hands if they do not agree on the court’s decision? Well, two thousand years ago, things were different. People took matters in their own hands. There was no judge, jury, prosecutor or defendant in Ancient Greece. Individuals acted as executioners based on their own predilections on how justice should be administrated and on whom. In the Oresteia, Aeschylus praises the substitution of such blood vengeance system with trial by jury, which according to him was a more civilized and equitable system. In that matter, I must agree with Aeschylus and argue that jury by trial is a far more civilized and equitable system than the old blood vengeance system.
The concept of the accused being assessed by their ‘peers’ is very appropriate as they judge merely based on the morals and principles of the society making the law more valid and binding. Whereas, ‘leaving the judgment to someone who doesn’t necessarily live in the real world’ (Love, 2014) may not be so appropriate. Also the‘ danger of getting rid of jury trials is that there will be a perception that someone who is an elite judge is going to be deciding matter, someone that may be in touch with the ordinary community’ (Harvey 2011). Hence, the jury system ensures the communities ethics, values and morals are implied and safeguards the law is applied in a way ‘that fits in with what the society expects’ (Love 2014).
Trial by jury is not a new concept; it has been around since ancient times. The United States’ Founding Fathers embedded the right to trial by jury in the U.S. Constitution because King George III often denied them of the benefits of trial by jury (Shepard, 2005). Juries are needed to defend against absolute government, but juries are not entirely fair. For something around so long, the concept of a justice system based in adversarial processes still may be flawed. Jurors may possess implicit biases, which alter their judgments. Elek and Hannaford-Agor (2013) define implicit bias as, “an individual’s unconscious attitudes [that] introduce unjustified assumptions about other people and related evidence that can distort a person’s judgment
“One of the distinctive features of criminal justice in the United States is trial by a jury of one’s peers” (Bohm & Haley, 2011). This right is claimed and protected under the authority of the Sixth Amendment, as such, an individual’s right to a trial by an impartial jury is constitutional and must be maintained and safeguarded from infringement. Sadly, current society has allowed Constitutional rights to become secondary in lieu of an increased sense of security or a matter of convenience. Several rebuttals can be made to the arguments against a trial by jury.
Magna Cara is acclaimed as introducing the notion of trial by peers. The notion of jury trials dates right back to the creation of Magna Carta in 1215 by King John, and has developed enormously over time. Successful generations have seen a historical 800 years of development within the jury trial system. Significant markings such as the Fourth Lateran Council, the passing of Australian legislation and global documents that reflect the origins of Magna Carta, show the strong impact Magna Carta had on the development of trial by jury. Trial by jury is now seen as one of the most valued and highly respected concepts with the Australian legal system. It’s current process reflects a democracy and justice. It has allowed for the protection of individual
stated in the 7th Amendment of the US Constitution. People view the jury as an important part of citizens lives. Without the jury, judges would be in charge of deciding if people were guilty or innocent of crimes. People would have no ability to debate if the person accused was guilty or innocent. The jury system has a special role in the people’s right of popular sovereignty. These people are proud of the jury system and are glad it’s a
Trials provide the ultimate forum for vindicating the innocence of the accused or confirming the liability of the defendant. For that reason, the right to be tried by a jury of one’s peers is guaranteed in the Sixth and Seventh Amendment to the Constitution. It is stated in Article III, Section 2, of the Constitution that, “The trial of all crimes shall be by jury,” (Neubauer 341). The importance of juries’ introducing standards into the justice system has been associated with the concept of jury nullification (Neubauer 339). Jury nullification is the, “Right of juries to nullify or refuse to apply law in criminal cases despite facts that leave no reasonable doubt that the law was violated,” (Neubauer 374).
George Orwell includes a strong message in his novel Animal Farm that is easily recognizable. Orwell’s Animal Farm focuses on two primary problems that were not only prominent in his WWII society, but also posed as reoccurring issues in all societies past and present. Orwell’s novel delivers a strong political message about class structure and oppression from the patriarchal society through an allegory of a farm that closely resembles the Soviet Union.
This essay will be looking at the advantages and disadvantages of the jury trial. Jury trial is a legal proceeding where a jury makes a decision, which then direct the actions of a judge. The members of a jury are a group of independent citizens. They have no interest in the case before them, nor is their judgment coloured by regular experience of the business of the court. They are “twelve individuals, often with no prior contact with the courts, who are chosen at random to listen to evidence and decide upon matters affecting the reputation and liberty of those charged with criminal offences.” The jury has always been drawn from sections of society but has been made democratic only in the last half century. And now almost all citizen of the United Kingdom are eligible to serve on a jury. But the percentage of criminal cases actually tried by jury is surprisingly low. Nowadays “the magistrates’ courts deal with at least 95 per cent of criminal cases. In practice juries determine the outcome of less than 1 per cent of the total of the criminal cases.” But still the idea of trial by jury has always been seen as a “cornerstone of the English legal system” , and it remains the standard mode of trial for dealing with the most serious types of criminal case. But even though it is established and been in practice for years, people seem to believe that there are disadvantages to jury trails. Nonetheless, the jury system is becoming increasingly controversial. Critics claim that