After the Vicky Pryce trial outcome, would you want your fate decided by a jury? - Mirror.co.uk

When the judge in the Vicky Pryce trial said the jury had shown "absolute fundamental deficits in understanding" it could mean only one of two things.

That they are as thick as brick outhouses. Or their grasp of the English language was nowhere near good enough for them to be sitting on a jury.

Either way it's terrifying.

When 12 supposedly good men and true have to ask what the words "beyond reasonable doubt" mean and whether they can base their verdict on something that wasn't heard in court and has nothing whatsoever to do with the case, then you know it's all gone pear-shaped.

I've been a crime reporter and have sat through countless trials where I've seen jurors fall asleep. I've seen them flirting with each other when they should have been listening to evidence. I've seen them picking their noses, picking their nails, staring into space. I rarely saw a juror take notes – even in complicated fraud trials.

And while I have no idea what the alternative is, I do know many juries just aren't fit for purpose.

We can't keep saying ordinary citizens should be at the heart of the justice system if those citizens don't want to be there, can't be arsed to listen to the evidence, don't care about or under-stand what they're hearing and just want to get home in time for tea and a bit of telly.

Would you want YOUR fate decided by someone like that?

We keep hearing the Pryce trial was unusual and that most juries do a great job.

Well not according to a new report which says two thirds of jurors don't understand the judge's direction, many have no idea what their purpose is and many more go on the internet to ­research trials (to find out if the ­defendant has previous) even though they're told not to.

And let's face it, the Pryce trial wasn't complicated. Her defence was "marital coercion", i.e. she says her husband forced her to take his speeding points.

The problem was the jurors had no clue what "coercion" meant.

And we can't shy away from saying some people aren't bright enough to be jurors, because some simply aren't.

And when a person's life, liberty or reputation is at stake then those "not very bright people" shouldn't be sending someone down for 15 years when the evidence has just been white noise to them.

And while many jurors ARE responsible, idiot ones do exist.

There's the lot in Hove who used a ouija board to contact the victim of the alleged murderer in the dock. In another trial a juror asked for the ­defendant's birth date so she could check what his star sign was.

In another a Muslim juror was arrested for listening to music on her iPod under her hijab.

I'm sorry but the law is too important to be put into the hands of those who don't take it seriously.

The police put in enormous amounts of time and effort to catch criminals and legal teams spend months putting together the evidence.

Which is why we cannot have a person's guilt or innocence determined by a jury that just doesn't understand it and makes decisions based on whether the defendant's got shifty eyes or an evil grin.

I'm not saying jurors have to be superbrains. But they must at least be interested.

They must also understand what's happening, what's at stake and they must appreciate the weight of the responsibility on their shoulders. Most important of all they must be able to speak and understand English.

Would you want your fate decided by an 18-year-old with no experience of the world and for whom English isn't his first or even his second language?

Well it's happening in a court near you.