Thanks JD. Job Well Done.

Thanks for filling in as SCOIDBlog administrator. And, by the way, that outfit works for you.

I'm back from the land of deep fried cod and soggy chips. (Flaccid Fries?) There's a lot of history in Britain and, as they say, it could have been ours too, if we'd only paid our taxes. Luckily we didn't. While I was there, their appellate court upheld the application of a statute which takes away the right to a jury trial.

In the case at question, the defendant is charged with an armed robbery where 1.75 million pounds was stolen. (That's a lot of money, even in a country where a mini-pizza and a pint of beer can set you back $30.) At his first trial, he had a heart attack, but his co-defendants were acquitted. At the second, the jury hung. The third was a mistrial after allegations of jury tampering were made by the government. (Ironically, the cost of the three trials has been about 22 million pounds!)

Pursuant to a 2003 statute, a defendant can be tried before a single judge if there is a "real and present danger" that jury tampering will occur. However, no evidence of jury tampering has ever been presented in open court or even given to defense lawyers. One of his solicitors said that "The ruling has been made on the basis of secret material which we have never seen, presented by witnesses whose identity – other than their rank in the Metropolitan police – has not been disclosed to us."

According to the Times of London this will be the first non-jury criminal trial in England in the last 400 years!

Disappointing news from the land that gave us the right to a trial by jury.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jun/18/john-twomey-trial-without-jury

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6528322.ece