UK Law Articles
These articles are reproduced from old newspapers. Whether you are looking for old articles about the Lord Chancellor's Department, or trying to find stories on solicitors, judges or courts, the law teacher article database is here to help you. You will find these articles useful for writing your law essays, law dissertations and law coursework.
The Times
November 21 1998
Blacks will be hit most by jury changes
BY FRANCES GIBB, LEGAL CORRESPONDENT
GOVERNMENT plans to cut a defendant's right to elect jury trial in a wide range of middle-ranking cases will hit black defendants hardest, the Bar warned yesterday.
The plans - which are strongly opposed across the legal profession and civil liberties groups - will remove the right to elect jury trial for a host of offences including theft and grievous bodily harm, drugs and indecent assault.
The Bar said yesterday which showed that black defendants elect jury trial far more than do white defendants because of their lack of confidence in magistrates' courts.
The removal of the right of the defendant to choose where he wants to be tried would therefore hit black defendants particularly hard.
Courtenay Griffiths, QC, of the Society of Black Lawyers, said: "The evidence is that black defendants see magistrates' courts as police courts. A fair hearing from a randomly selected panel of jurors greatly enhances the confidence that minority communities have in the justice system."
The inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence showed "all too clearly what can happen when a section of the community no longer has confidence in an element of the justice system," he added.
He added that research by the Runnymede Trust showed that 45 per cent of Afro-Caribbean defendants chose jury trial compared with 30 per cent of white and Asian defendants.
An early pilot study at Leicester magistrates' court for the Government showed that 13 per cent of black defendants were sentenced to immediate custody for theft offences, compared with five per cent of whites.
A similar pattern was emerging for the grant of unconditional bail: with more than 60 per cent of white defendants obtaining this compared with 44 per cent of blacks. "These figures are very disturbing."
