UK jury trials for crimes with sentences under three years to be dropped News
UK jury trials for crimes with sentences under three years to be dropped

The United Kingdom on Tuesday unveiled its reform plans to scrap jury trials for crimes with an expected sentence of less than three years. The measure aims to reduce a “record backlog of cases” in the criminal justice system, which is estimated to rise to 100,000 cases by 2028.

In his announcement, Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Justice David Lammy highlighted numerous issues in the current system. He stated that “victims are waiting far too long to get their case to court,” with some waiting as long as “three or four years.” He described the “bold” reforms as “necessary to tackle the emergency in our courts” and deliver justice to victims.

Under the plan, the establishment of “swift courts” will address this issue, with a single judge hearing any case that carries a sentence of less than three years. This is predicted to “take 20% less time than a jury trial.” Other measures include conducting judge-only trials for complex financial and fraud cases, empowering magistrates to confer sentences of 18 months, and allowing courts to determine where cases are heard. The government estimates that these measures will affect a quarter of cases that would otherwise have gone before a jury.

The British legal community has criticized the measures. In particular, vice president of the Law Society Brett Dixon said that the “government’s proposals go too far in eroding our fundamental right to be judged by a jury of our own peers.” The Free Speech Union, a free speech rights organization, similarly expressed concern that data shows acquittal rates from 2017 to 2025 are 10 percent higher before crown court juries compared to magistrates’ courts (with a bigger gap for speech-related cases).

The government’s measures are informed by the recommendations of a recent report by Sir Brian Leveson, former president of the Queen’s Bench Division. In Part 1 of his review, Leveson claimed that “there exists no constitutional or indeed any form of general common law right to trial by judge and jury” from either Magna Carta or the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). This is, however, debated. Part 2 of the review remains to be published.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Nixon nominated Harrold Carswell to the US Supreme Court

On January 19, 1970, President Richard Nixon nominated Judge G. Harrold Carswell of the US Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to the US Supreme Court. The nomination became intensely controversial after a reporter discovered the text of a 1948 political campaign speech by Carswell in which he said "segregation of the races is proper." The Senate eventually rejected the nomination 51-45. ------------------- Afterword In November 2004, a JURIST reader wrote with regard to this entry: You are factually correct. The speech is accurately quoted. But the most significant part of it wasn't that quote -- which, after all, reflected the law of the land through Brown v. Board of Education. The most significant part was Carswell's avowal of his "firm, vigorous belief in the principles of white supremacy." I recall this because I was the reporter who discovered the speech, in the basement of the Wilkinson County courthouse in Georgia, where it was preserved as lead story in The Irwinton Bulletin, a weekly Carswell edited, which was kept because it was the legal paper of record." Edward Roeder later added: "just to ensure the accuracy of my quote from the speech -- including capitalization and punctuation -- let me check it. At the moment, I'm at the Library of Congress, a couple of blocks from my home where I have a photograph I took of the speech as printed in 1948 in the weekly newspaper. Another great quote spawned by that confirmation battle was by Sen. Judiciary Committee Ranking Republican Roman Hruska, in response to the charge that Carswell was "mediocre." Hruska famously told the cameras staked outside the hearing room: "Even if he was mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers . . . They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance? We can't have all Brandeises and Cardozos and Frankfurters and stuff like that there." One other aspect of that nomination might be worth noting. After Carswell's defeat, the seat went to Harry Blackmun. A year and a half later, he wrote Roe v. Wade," probably the most controversial and far-reaching SCOTUS decision since Brown."And finally:I found and reviewed my photo of Carswell's 1948 speech. First, it may be helpful to provide a bit of context for the part you quoted. The graf read, "I Am A Southerner By Ancestry, Birth, Training, Inclination, Belief And Practice. I Believe That Segregation Of The Races is Proper And The ONLY Practical And Correct Way Of Life In Our States." The first letter of each word is capitalized, the the word ONLY is in all caps. The "white supremacy" quote, two grafs later, is as strident: "I Yield To NO MAN, As A Fellow Candidate, Or As A Fellow Citizen, In The Firm Vigirous Belief In The Principles Of White Supremacy, And I Shall Always Be So Governed." Again, the first letter of each word is capitalized, and NO MAN is in all caps. "Vigorous" is misspelled in the newspaper. JURIST thanks Mr. Roeder for sharing his recollections - and his role in a fascinating snippet of Supreme Court history.

Tribunal established for Japan war criminals

On January 19, 1946, General Douglas MacArthur promulgated the Charter for the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, creating a court in Tokyo to try Japanese war criminals after World War II. Pursuant to Article 7 of the Charter, the Court's Rules of Procedure were set three months later. The judges and prosecutors represented the allied nations of the United States, the USSR, China, the Netherlands, Canada, France, New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom, the Philippines, and India. Article 6 of the Charter divided the accused War Criminals into three classes. Class A war criminals were those guilty of crimes against peace. Class B war criminals were those found guilty of actual war crimes. The highest-level war criminals fell into Class C for crimes against humanity. Court prosecutors indicted over 5,700 people in Japan for Class B and C War Crimes. When the tribunal's final judgment was issued two years later on November 1, 1948, 984 of the defendants were convicted and sentenced to death. 475 of them were convicted and sentenced to life in prison, while 2,944 received lesser prison terms. Finally, 1,297 Japanese defendants were either acquitted, not tried, or not sentenced. Many Japanese defendants were indicted for their actions during the occupation of China. Read the indictment of Class A war criminals involved in the Rape of Nanking.

American Civil Liberties Union founded

The American Civil Liberties Union was founded on January 19, 1920 by a group of civil rights activists and lawyers. The group's founders included Helen Keller, labor activist Elizabeth Gurley-Flynn and future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter. The organization would be involved in the Scopes Monkey Trial and the landmark Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education. Learn more about the history of the American Civil Liberties Union.