Jury Duty Reminder: Upholding Justice in the Courtroom Amidst New Criminal Assizes Session

Members of the public selected for jury duty have been urged to “do the right thing” as the working of the court is “serious business”.

Madam Justice Laurie-Ann Smith-Bovell made the appeal on Monday as the new session of the Criminal Assizes got underway in the High Court. She told jurors in her No. 4 Supreme Court that they must decide guilt or innocence of an accused based only on the evidence heard from the witnesses involved in that particular case, and nowhere else.

“You are here because you represent a very important institution in our society, and that is the institution of trial by jury which guarantees any individual charged with a criminal offence the right to have their case tried by 12 or nine – depending on the type of case — independent and open-minded members of society . . . .

“Your role and function as jurors are to hear the evidence in a case and determine what evidence is true, what is lies and resolve any disputes that you hear in the evidence so that you can determine the innocence or guilt of an accused person,” the judge said as she made it clear that there is no “CSI Barbados”.

“I know you see CSI and NCIS, but I urge you not to be more lawyers than the people who went to law school or even me the judge . . . . Because I have found that notwithstanding how many times I tell jurors to listen to the evidence and apply the evidence that they have before them, sometimes it comes back through the grapevine that they are applying areas of law that don’t even apply. So I urge you, if you are sitting on a case, listen and follow the directions of the judge . . . .

“Members of the jury, this is serious business we come to do here and I urge you not to allow yourselves to move from sitting in the jury box to the accused dock.”

The judge added: “Do not let anyone cause you to pervert the course of justice. Don’t let anyone come to you to discuss the case. Don’t let anyone come to you or any member of your family for payment for coming to a particular decision about a case . . . . Jurors have been prosecuted for perverting the course of justice and have been found guilty; don’t let yourself become one.”

They were also cautioned to stay “far from all those scandalous social media networks that seek to influence how you think or decide a case”, as well as the court pages of mainstream media, when hearing evidence in a case.

“Do the right thing,” Justice Smith-Bovell implored, adding that any juror with “entrenched” biases, whether about police or otherwise, should excuse themselves from the jury pool.

“. . . . Take your leave because those biases prejudice cases . . . and the evidence from previous trials has shown that justice has not been done because of biases that people come in here [with . . . . You come in here to do justice, you come in here to hear the evidence and make a decision based on the evidence, eliminating and disregarding any biases which you may have, and if you can’t do that, this is not the place for you. We come to do justice in here for every single [person] – accused and complainant.”