The Crown Court - part 1

The Crown Court is the place where most serious criminal trials take place. Serious offences will be dealt with in the Crown Court unless they are involving young offenders under 18 dealt with at the Youth (formerly juvenile) court. ^ TOP

Criminal Trials

Criminal trials are where a party is charged with a crime. Murder, robbery, rape. At the lowest end of the scale (a matter that would be dealt with by the magistrates) driving without due care and attention. Crimes are things that you are forbidden from doing and for which a penalty is imposed after a trial if you do them, are prosecuted (i.e. charged and taken to trial) and convicted (found guilty after a trial, or a guilty plea i.e. accepting and admitting that you did it). If you have watched a film with a criminal trial taking place then it is almost certainly set in the Crown Court. An easy way to tell is whether the lawyers are robed. If it is a criminal charge then in the magistrates Court (as to which see the article on the magistrates courts) or the youth court neither the magistrates nor the lawyers wear robes. In the Crown Court the judge will wear a wig and a judge's robe, and the barristers will be wearing wigs and gowns. ^ TOP

A jury of peers

However normally it is not the judge in the Crown Court at a trial who is making the decision. It is the jury. Technically the judge is the judge of the law, and the jury is the judge of the facts. Thus if there is a legal issue the judge has to decide it. Sometimes for example the defence will say that there is no proper evidence to support a particular element of the charge. (Each charge will be broken down into a number of elements. Thus for example if someone is charged with driving a motor vehicle on a particular date whilst they were disqualified from driving, it has to be proved that they were disqualified (unless formally admitted) and that they were driving the vehicle on the date alleged.) If the judge decides the defence are right that there is no proper evidence on a particular element of the charge then he will give a "directed verdict" to acquit (an acquittal is where someone is found not guilty of a charge). Since he has to decide what the law is if a necessary part of the case cannot properly be proved he will determine that. ^ TOP

Summing Up

Likewise the judge will tell the jury various matters in his summing up. (at the end of the case after all the evidence from witnesses, and the speeches by the barristers, the judge goes through matters for the jury, tells them what the law is and goes through some of the evidence and essentially "sums up" what happened in the case). He will go through what the elements of the offence are. To take again disqualified driving then there has to be proof firstly that the time of the alleged offence the defendant was actually disqualified (unless formally admitted -often the defence will admit this, because it is normally easy to prove and so if it is accepted that person is disqualified there is usually no point in putting the prosecution to the trouble of proving it) and then proof that the defendant was the person actually driving the car on the date alleged. For example there might be two police officers saying they saw the defendant driving, and he may say it was not him. The jury would have to be sure that the defendant was the person driving the car. Put another way, they would have to have been satisfied "beyond reasonable doubt" that the defendant was driving the car. If they thought it was very likely that the defendant was driving the car, but they were not sure, then they must find him not guilty and acquit him. ^ TOP

It's for the jury to decide

Whilst the judge will tell the jury what the law is, including telling them they have to be sure of guilt in order to convict, and can make comments about the facts, ultimately it is for the jury to decide on those facts. Take the example of the defence saying there was no proper evidence to support a particular part of the charge. If the judge thought that there was evidence, but that it was weak evidence which a jury could reasonably accept, then even though he himself would not accept it, then he should leave it to the jury. It is for the jury to decide on the issues of fact not the judge. Similarly just because a judge thinks it is overwhelmingly obvious that a defendant committed a particular crime, he cannot tell the jury what to do, or make them convict, it is up to the jury to make up its mind. ^ TOP

Juries can show their independence

Whilst the judge when summing up the facts can effectively indicate what he thinks the jury ought to do, great care is required. Judges who virtually tell the jury what to do can often find that the jury show their independence by doing the opposite. It is well known amongst barristers that judges who give a summing up virtually telling the jury to convict the defendant will nearly always cause an acquittal. The judge who sums up much more moderately and points out the important parts of the evidence for the jury to consider is much more likely to find the jury convicting. This leads to the great irony that criminal defendants, whilst the jury are out considering their verdict (decision), are often very complimentary about the judges who they think have been very fair in summing up. The judge may well have been very fair, but no one ever likes to point out to a defendant that he would probably have been a lot better off with a judge who was obviously unfair. Juries are made up of ordinary people just like anyone else. Telling someone that they can't or shouldn't do something that they think should be their own decision, is often the best way to make sure that they do precisely that.

Michael J. Booth QC

Crown Court part 1