Jury Trials. By John Baldwin and Michael McConville. [Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1979. 150 pp. £4·95.]

Published date01 November 1979
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1979.tb01567.x
Date01 November 1979
REVIEWS
JURY
TRIALS.
By
JOHN
BALDWIN
and
MICHAEL MCCONVILLB.
WHEN
the Criminal Law Revision Committee submitted its Elcventh Report in
1972
(Evidence (General), Cmnd.
4991)
it could hardly have envisaged the
extent of the furious academic and political debate which has followed in the
wake of its proposals to change certain rules of evidence. Sir Robert Mark
and Professor Michael Zander have been the most prominent figures in the
subsequent wide-ranging controversy over the naturc of court acquittal rates,
particularly in relation to the acquittals of those dubbed
professional
criminals.” This latest work, funded by the Home Office, by Baldwin and
McConville, two authors who have also been active in these debates, will add
considerable fuel to the fire. However, there is another more lengthy legal
tradition into which the study fits; namely the question of jury trial itself.
Baldwin and McConville’s earlier book
Negotiated Justice
(Martin
Robertson
1977)
on
plea-bargaining, taken from the same research period, was
receivcd with great hostility by the official voices of the legal profession (See
J.
Baldwin and M. McConville: “Plea bargaining: Legal Carve-up and
Lcgal Cover-up
in
British Journal
of
taw and Society
(1978),
Vol.
5,
No.
2).
Such professional suspicion of academic legal research led to research
problems with the present study of jury trials in Birmingham and London.
Indeed a sizeable portion of this short book is devoted to an honest admission
by the authors of the methodological limits
of
their study which led to
a
modification of their original objectives. They rightly criticise previous research
on the jury, much
of
it American, for the serious problems involved in the
work, for example the need to use “mock juries.” However, this new work,
relying heavily on the “evaluation
of a substantial number of actual jury
verdicts by
experts
in the trial-that
is
the police, judges and defence and
prosecution lawyers-is not without its own severe drawbacks.
The central research findings seemingly contradict the suggestion in previous
jury research (which is well reviewed in Chap.
1)
that jury verdicts are largely
supported by the experts. The authors found, to their surprise, that there was
a disturbing
proportion
of
both convictions and acquittals by jurics which
wcre regarded as doubtful by the experts. It would be misleading to highlight
the exact
rates
which emerged from the study for the authors argue that
it “is a matter of judgment whether the proportion
of
acquittals is too high
or low; there is no proper rate for the job” (p.
66).
But they go on
to
conclude that the jury, although a minute part of
our
criminal justice system in
terms of numbers of cases heard, failed to produce convictions in a significant
proportion of trials where experts evaluated their defendant as guilty. It is
also claimed that juries convicted in too many serious cases where inadequate
appeal procedures may have led to custodial sentences for
the
innocent. The
reader is entitled to ask the crucial question in response to such conclusions:
what criteria are being used by the authors for thcir judgment
as
to the
“disturbing” nature of their findings, which shattered their own faith in
jury trials. Adequate criteria are not provided, and concurring with Sir Robert
Mark that there is
no good reason why the jury should remain inviolate
’*
(p.
132)
may well be Interpreted (mistakenly) as argument in favour of its
abolition.
Nevertheless, the book does produce some interesting comments. For instancc
on “professional criminals” we are told that there
is
“little evidence to
justify amending rules of evidence or procedure on the basis
of
the supposed
ability of professional criminals to exploit the system”
(p.
126).
There are
also
significant findings on jury composition, since it was
dcmocratised.”
[Oxford
:
Clarendon
Press.
1979.
150
pp.
f4.95.1
726

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT