Should juries decide on the facts of a criminal case? Or should judges?
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Should 12 ordinary people be the ones to decide which witnesses are speaking the truth, which bits of evidence add up and which don't?
It's a big question after the High Court overturned the jury's verdict of "guilty" in the trial of Cardinal George Pell, who was accused of sexually assaulting two boys while he was Archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.
There's no question that the judges of the High Court had the legal right to overturn the verdict, even if that right is rarely and reluctantly exercised.
But there is also an ancient and valuable institution involved: the idea that ordinary people are best placed to judge motive and character and circumstances after they have looked the witnesses in the eye.
Juries are one of the glories of the Australian legal system.
It would be tempting to think that experts or highly educated judges are better placed to make decisions - but we Australians and British and Americans think ordinary people are usually the best judges of facts, motives and behaviour, albeit with some exceptions like complicated trials of fraud and financial shenanigans.
The origin of the idea is lost in time, but ancient it certainly is.
The history of an old church in Britain takes the idea back to the year 997, though it clearly came even before that.
The history of the church in the town of Wantage mentions "juries of twelve leading thegns (servants) who would bring to trial guilty persons and arrest 'all men of bad repute' involved in disputes".
The moral is that juries are to be contradicted with great care, and very rarely.
The idea was that the king shouldn't judge disputes involving himself, so 12 "ordinary" people should assess the evidence (though, obviously, "ordinary people" didn't include anyone who might actually get their hands dirty with work at that time).
You get the idea. Ordinary people are well placed to judge character and likelihoods as people relate their version of events. They - we - are good judges of whether someone is telling us the truth.
I've covered many, many jury trials, and I have never known a jury to be perverse and go against the evidence which I, too, had heard. Now and again, they must do - but my impression is that, by and large, juries are diligent and thoughtful.
It's a great system.
But it is not infallible, particularly when judges intervene.
In 1987, the novelist and Conservative politician Jeffrey Archer (now Lord Archer) won a libel case against a British newspaper which had accused him of sleeping with a prostitute.
His wife, a beautiful Cambridge academic, was in court.
The now-dead judge in that case, Mr Justice Caulfield, made a loaded summary speech to the jury: "Is he in need of cold, unloving, rubber-insulated sex in a seedy hotel?"
And then the judge in his grandeur delivered this line of praise to Archer's wife: "Has she fragrance? Would she have, without the strain of this trial, radiance?"
The implication to the jury was: "Why on earth would this successful, rich man need to go to a prostitute with such a 'fragrant, radiant' wife?"
With such a strong direction from the judge, the jury agreed and found for Lord Archer.
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The Australian editor of the offending newspaper was sacked and died of a heart attack, with his family saying the trial had contributed to his death.
Neither he nor Mr Justice Caulfield lived to see the conviction of Lord Archer for perjury 14 years later.
As The New York Times reported: "Lord Archer was found guilty of creating false diaries and concocting a bogus story to win a 1987 trial over whether he had slept with a prostitute to whom he paid $3500 in hush money."
The moral is that juries are to be contradicted with great care, and very rarely.
Which brings us to our own time. Cardinal Pell's conviction has been overturned. The jury in his trial heard all the evidence, but the judges of the High Court have decided there was "reasonable doubt" and so a verdict of not guilty should have been reached.
This is no doubt the right decision. Doubt there clearly is, despite what the jury decided. The High Court has the legal ability to intervene in this way. It's rarely used, but the judges of the High Court have behaved properly and within the law.
Nobody but the cardinal and the remaining person who claimed he was assaulted knows the truth of what happened in the sacristy of the cathedral in Melbourne more than two decades ago.
But it would be sad, indeed, if a habit of overruling juries by judges took hold.
- Steve Evans is a Canberra Times reporter.