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[admin]

America used to have Blue Ribbon Jury panels from time to time. These were wealthy well-educated people able to devote substantial time and energy to a case. We no longer allow such a jury.

Some sort of aptitude test probably wouldn't go a miss. People who weren't interested would deliberately fail it obviously but would that be such a bad thing.

I don't know, educated people can do some daft things too though so you can't go by qualifications necessarily. I'm still trying to recover from hearing about someone who accidentally blew up their hoover trying to clean out his petrol tank and he wasn't some one you'd consider would do such a silly thing.

[Sandra Lean]

Until 6 months ago, here in Scotland, we had a system which refused accused people access to solicitors during police questioning (and allowed "evidence") from that questioning in court, dock identification and a jury majority rule which required a majority of just one.

Talk about loading the dice 

We did have some "safeguards" though - the need for corroboration and taped interviews, even though there were no solicitors present, for example. But corroboration wasn't what it seemed - pretty much anything was allowed to count as corroboration, and QCs would only play selected bits of interviews (i.e. bits where the accused could be made to sound "hostile" or "aggressive" etc.)

It's all better now, since the Cadder ruling in October. We still have dock id and jury majority of one, but interviews with solicitors are gone. In return (there's always a price) we've extended the time we can hold someone for questioning from 6 hours to 12 hours (ostensibly to allow time for solicitors to get there - couldn't possibly be 12 hours to "soften up" accused people before interview, could it?) and now we're considering losing the need for corroboration - after all, if we don't have interviews without solicitors, there's less need for safeguards, isn't there? Isn't there.....?

[Colin Bowman]

One broad answer, is: that any jury is only as good as the population from which it is drawn. Factors rlevantly affecting a population, are factors such as culture and education. So does a society's culture give its population an informed understanding of legal process, trials, and jury verdicts? Does that society invest in educating its population in such things?
If justice which attaches to jury trials, were made a compulsory subject in education, then that would make a difference. It would be possible to argue for a test of competence to sit on a jury, just as we have driving tests. Could media companies be persuaded to run as many shows dealing seriously with justice and jury-trials, as we currently have shows dealing with food? It would be possible to argue that all trials dealing with serious crimes or sentences, should be audited after the fact, to assess the manner in which evidence appears to have led to verdict.
None of such changes would get rid of problems, but they might shift them to where they could be usefully discussed; where current problems seem to have much to do with the dynamics involved not being properly discussed.
Its probably necessary to provide a frame of reference in which qualitative and quantitative research into jury deliberations and judgements can be undertaken.