What Role Do People Play In The Jury Box

According to EP Thompson:
The English common law rests upon a bargain between the law and the people. The jury box is where the people come into the court, the judge watches them and the jury watches back. A jury is the place where the bargain struck. A jury attends in judgment not only upon the accused but also upon the justice and humanity of the law.
The role of the jury is the jury make decision based on the fact while matters based on law is the signory of judge. The jury makes decision based on their understanding of the law explained by the judge. Then, they have to apply the law to the facts. And so only they can reach a verdict. Juries actually operate only in a few cases and the role playing by them is continuously being reduced
Here, two examples will clarify it. During the jury deliberations, some members of the jury were associated with a Neo-Nazi group and they encourage the conviction of the defendant on the grounds that he was a black immigrant. The other example is the jury reached a guilty verdict by spinning a coin without the process of deliberation. The secrecy rule prohibits jury from disclosing what had happened in the jury room to third party. The secrecy rule is on the basis of confidentiality. It encourages the jurors to express their view freely without worrying to be laugh by the public, contempt or hatred. At the same time, secrecy rule can be one of the reasons for jury impropriety because no one knows what they had said and done in the jury room and the fact they do not have to justify, explain or even give reasons for their decision. To try to obtain such information from jury member in both criminal and civil law case will be a contempt of court under s 8 of the Contempt of Court Act 1981. In Attorney General v Asociated Newspaper (1994) , a newspaper cannot publish revelation by jurors of what had occurred in the jury room when the juries were considering their verdict, as it was a contempt of court. However, there are exception where is the re-publication of facts that have been already known. In R v Clive Ponting , the jury’s decision was inconsistent with the judge, as the
Juries should make their decision impartially. However, in reality the problem of intimidation, bullies and racists were happened in the jury. In R v Qureshi , a major complaint was the allegation of overt racism in the jury room. In Remli v France , a third party Mrs M heard a jury said that “what’s more, I’m a racist”. The defendant raised an objection. However, the court refused to investigate the matter as the statement had not been made in the presence of the judges. In R v Mirza , the defendant is a Pakistani. He used an interpreter as English is not his first language although he settled in England in 1988. In spite of the juror’s racism, she wrote a letter to the counsel said that the use of an interpreter by the defendant is a devious ploy in some way although she know that it was nothing questionable to use an interpreter. Thus, the letter she wrote cannot convince anyone. The problem of racism leads to jury impropriety, as the jury will make decision with prejudice and bias. This is definitely unfair to the