UK Law Articles
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The Times
February 20 1996
CONSIDER YOUR VERDICT
Give magistrates better training
Derek Edmunds, JP, shed some light in The Times last month ("Consider your verdict", January 2) on how magistrates reach their verdicts. His article prompted a number of responses from readers. Here we publish two views.
PROFESSOR A. N. Allott, of Banbury, Oxon, says that the article was "sketchy and somewhat idealistic" on how magistrates decide issues of fact.
From 25 years' experience as a JP and work with training magistrates, he says: "It is clear to me that the JP system is at its weakest when it comes to deciding issues of fact." Training on evaluating evidence is absent or inadequate, he says.
"The situation is aggravated by the almost total exclusion of the persons who might be able to help, namely the clerks, from this aspect of the magisterial process."
He goes on to comment that while JPs may be recruited for their common sense and knowledge of the world, that is not enough.
"Where all three magistrates are unanimous in their verdict, the chairman will lead the bench immediately back to court without further examination or reflection. But that verdict may well be wrong if it is based on mere hunch, or a gut reaction to the witnesses.
"Certainly there are cases which are open-and-shut, where further discussion would be unnecessary. But my experience in the retiring room tells me that this can be a fatal procedure."
He says that the chairman of the bench should review the elements of an offence, and the evidence should be systematically analysed to see if each element is proved. But many chairmen may not be capable of such a review; and the rules on evidence are technical and difficult.
JPs also have to decide on questions such as the defendant's intent; and on standards such as whether a driver fell below the standard of a competent motorist. JPs "do their best" but they need proper training. At present, he says, the training is deficient.
GRAHAM PERRY, also a JP, of Stanmore, Middlesex, expressed "deep disagreement" with many of the points made in the article.
He says that the last issue JPs consider not the first, as Mr Edmunds stated is the question of guilt. That point is reached only after the chairman has highlighted the main issues of evidence that need to be considered and they have been discussed with the two other magistrates.
Second, he says that under what is called the "structured decision making" process which JPs follow, they look at both the crime and the criminal separately, and at any mitigating or aggravating features of each. Only then is punishment considered.
