What is the role of jury in criminal trials

What is the role of jury in criminal trials?
A Jury in Crown Court usually deals with criminal trials consists of 12 members. A jury is used normally when the defendant pleads not guilty. However, jurors are considered passive as they would not cross examine the defendant and the plaintiffs. The trial is presided over by a judge who will decides the points of law and the jury will consider the facts and evidence raised in the court and make a verdict. Very often, jurors are not legal professionals, hence the judge has the power to direct the jury to acquit the defendant if he believes that, in the point of legal reasoning, the prosecution’s evidence has not made out a case against the defendant. This usually occurs close to 10% of the 20000 cases each year.
During the continuation of the trial, the judge will sum up the case at the end to the jury and direct them any law involved. The jury will then retire to a private room and make the decision on whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. The jury will reach to a unanimous decision on which they are all agreeable to the same verdict. Otherwise, a majority verdict will be considered if it takes too long for the jurors to reach to a decision. Majority verdicts were introduced due to the fear of jury nobbling, which the jurors were being bribed or intimidated by associates of the defendant into voting a not guilty verdict. This is essentially important because you just need to “nobble” one juror to bring a stalement situation. Hence, having to reach a unanimous decision is difficult, resulting to high acquittal rates and majority verdicts proved to have more conviction rates.
When the jury convict a defendant on a majority verdict, the foreman of the jury must announce the numbers both agreeing and disagreeing with the verdict in open court. This is to ensure that the jury have come to a legal majority. The jury discussion will also take place in secret and there can be no inquiry into how the jury reached its verdict. This is provided by Section 8 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981 that disclosure of any information contained in the jury room will be held as contempt of court.
What are the strengths of the jury system? (15m)
One obvious strength of the jury system is that it provides a platform for public participation in the judicial system. People will tend to have faith in the system because trial by jury is a very old tradition, and thus, they have confidence in the impartiality and fairness of a jury trial. A report by the Home Office in 2004 has shown that two thirds of the jurors felt that their experience had boosted their opinion of the jury system and they were impressed by the professionalism and helpfulness of the court staff and the performance of the judge. At the same time, a defendant coming from lower strata of the income family may not want to be judge by a judge that comes from a relatively richer background. He might prefer his case to be decided by a jury where there is more likelihood of including members of his own community. Hence, by providing public participation in the course of making judicial judgments will enhance the public confidence in the justice system.
The ability to allow jury to judge the cases by conscience inevitably . Since juries are not bound by past precedent cases and they do not need to give reasons for their verdict. It is possible for them to decide cases based on moral judgement. In the case of Ponting in 1985,