Justice is complex
From Sir Jonah Walker-Smith Sir: Why should one assume, as Judge Andrew Geddes appears to do (Blind justice', 23 March), that, when a judge disagrees with the verdict of a jury, the judge must necessarily be right and the jury wrong?
Judge Geddes, and other detractors of the jury system, suggest that research be done into how juries arrive at their verdicts. I suspect that such research, if done, would show that different juries approach their task in different ways. There is not necessarily a 'right' way.
Much simpler, and likely to be more clear-cut in its conclusions, would be to ascertain, by research or referendum, whether or not people trust the jury system as it is. That, after all, is what is important.
Further, I would not have thought that it mattered vastly — if at all — that we are, in our adherence to the jury system, out of tune with 'our Continental neighbours'. If it did matter, one could riposte that we are in tune with the majority of jurisdictions in the English-speaking world.
Sir Jonah Walker-Smith
London W2
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