Wow, yeah, I've never heard of anything like that in Australia!
I've never been on a jury in Australia
[and am now chronically ill enough that I would not be able to manage it, even without COVID - I can only concentrate on listening to speech for about 90 minutes before I start missing words and zoning out, no matter how hard I try to pay attention. Plus I need the ability to lie down and be horizontal regularly]
but from what I've heard,
you turn up,
and if you get picked, you get ONE case
which could be "this person was selling a skincare product without the appropriate Therapeutic Goods Administration safety permit" (a real case that really happened in my state, the person accused claimed the skincare product was a food and not a skincare product, and ate a jar of it in court)
or could be murder
but you never get more than ONE case.
Do you have judge-only trials with no jury? We have them here occasionally - I think it's up to the defendant to opt-in, which they do sometimes because either:
a) the defense lawyer thinks the defendant will alienate a jury;
b) due to COVID there are lengthy wait times for a jury trial, and the defendant wants the trial over and done with because they can't get bail because of the risk of them reoffending or intimidating witnesses
The last judge-only trial I heard about in my city was a man who had been accused of murdering three women for his entertainment (also some sexual assaults etc) - he asked for a judge only trial because his defense lawyer did not think a jury would be sympathetic to him[1].
no subject
I've never been on a jury in Australia
[and am now chronically ill enough that I would not be able to manage it, even without COVID - I can only concentrate on listening to speech for about 90 minutes before I start missing words and zoning out, no matter how hard I try to pay attention. Plus I need the ability to lie down and be horizontal regularly]
but from what I've heard,
you turn up,
and if you get picked, you get ONE case
which could be "this person was selling a skincare product without the appropriate Therapeutic Goods Administration safety permit" (a real case that really happened in my state, the person accused claimed the skincare product was a food and not a skincare product, and ate a jar of it in court)
or could be murder
but you never get more than ONE case.
Do you have judge-only trials with no jury? We have them here occasionally - I think it's up to the defendant to opt-in, which they do sometimes because either:
a) the defense lawyer thinks the defendant will alienate a jury;
b) due to COVID there are lengthy wait times for a jury trial, and the defendant wants the trial over and done with because they can't get bail because of the risk of them reoffending or intimidating witnesses
The last judge-only trial I heard about in my city was a man who had been accused of murdering three women for his entertainment (also some sexual assaults etc) - he asked for a judge only trial because his defense lawyer did not think a jury would be sympathetic to him[1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claremont_serial_killings#Trial