Criminal Trials Juries Review
3 January 2008
The necessity for and complexity of the instructions judges give juries in criminal trials will be reviewed by the Victorian Law Reform Commission.
The government has asked the commission to identify jury directions or warnings that are no longer needed and those that could be simplified.
The commission will also look at whether judges need to direct juries about matters that have not been raised by the trial lawyers and to what extent judges need to summarise the evidence for the jury.
“There is widespread concern among experienced lawyers that some jury directions are unnecessarily complex,” the commission’s Chairperson Professor Neil Rees said.
“They confuse jurors and provide grounds for highly technical appeals. This can lead to retrials that result in the same verdict as the original trial.
“Some directions are based on the idea that jurors do not possess the ability to assess the evidence presented at the trial and arrive at a verdict without detailed assistance from the judge.
“Our review will look at why appellate courts have directed that certain jury directions must be given and whether those reasons are still valid,” Professor Rees said.
The government has asked the commission to keep in mind the central role played by juries in ensuring community confidence in the criminal justice system; the principles of fairness for accused people and the desire for an efficient trial system; the Attorney-General’s Justice Statement; and the new Human Rights Charter.
The commission has made recommendations about jury directions in its Sexual Offences Final Report and the Uniform Evidence Law Final Report, where the Victorian, Australian and New South Wales commissions called for a general review of jury directions.
Directions to juries have generally evolved as part of the common law and are often made in response to decisions of the High Court concerning issues of fairness in criminal trials.
The New South Wales Law Reform Commission is also currently reviewing jury directions.