Jury interference was anticipated. The assembled jurors were each allocated a number before being brought into court. Instead of their names being called out in the ballot, their number was called for the ballot. No juror was identified in court by name.
Held: This procedure was lawful as it had no material and adverse effect on the fairness of the trial. It could be proper to hide jurors’ names from the defendant provided that his right of challenge was satisfactorily preserved, and where it was needed in order to avoid jury interference: ‘Plainly the procedure adopted here was a departure from [the] standard practice. We do not, however, consider that the mere fact of this departure renders the trial a nullity, unless it violated the legal right of the appellant or made the proceedings unfair to him.’
The procedure was not an irregularity, though it may have been had he been denied an effective opportunity to exercise his right of challenge: ‘It was entirely desirable that in normal circumstances the usual procedure for empanelling a jury be followed. But if, to thwart the nefarious designs of those suspected of seeking to nobble a jury, it is reasonably thought to be desirable to withhold jurors’ names, we can see no objection to that course providing the defendant’s right of challenge is preserved.’
Judges:
Lord Bingham of Cornhill LCJ, Potts, Butterfield JJ
Citations:
Gazette 26-Nov-1997, Times 03-Nov-1997, [1997] EWCA Crim 2697, [1998] 1 Cr App Rep 235, [1998] 1 WLR 191, [1998] 1 Cr App R 235, [1998] 1 All ER 823
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Tarrant CACD 18-Dec-1997
At a first trial it was suspected that a juror had been approached, and a retrial was ordered. The prosecutor applied to have the trial moved out of the area to avoid a repetition, but the judge directed instead that a jury protrection order be . .
Cited – Baybasin and Others, Regina v CACD 13-Dec-2013
The defendants sought leave to appeal against drugs related convictions saying that the method used for jury ballotting by the Crown Court was unlawful, the prosecutor having withdrawn his request for this, and that a juror had convicted after . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Practice
Updated: 11 October 2022; Ref: scu.152152