The Herald reports that a juror in the Bain case didn't disclose a prior theft conviction.
Shock, horror, gasp!
Hang on. Jurors are not obliged to disclose their prior convictions, and a prior conviction does not prevent a person from serving on a jury. However, if a convicted person receives a prison sentence they may be prevented from serving.
According to the Press the juror in question received a community service sentence for theft. So no jury rule was broken.
Did it affect the outcome of the case? We don't know. It's possible a juror's criminal past might cause them to feel sympathy for the accused. So what? That's still a big assumption to make. Supposing the same juror knows someone who was once the victim of violence. Does that now make the juror more hostile? People are complex and unpredictable, and we cannot assume that one experience out of many in a person's life will influence all of their decisions.
We are stuck with fallible humans in our justice system, because as far as I'm aware we are not yet at the stage of developing a
seriously smart and infallible computer to determine whether or not
someone is guilty of an offence.
So I can't see what the point of the story was. Were we meant to be scandalised? Does this mean our jury system isn't perfect after all? Maybe we should just throw the whole system out and get Paul the Octopus to make the calls.
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