Category: Jurors

Juries Susceptible to Bribery and Blackmail

If you think that jury tampering and bribing jurors only happen in telenovelas, movies and fictional books, you should probably think again. In fact, there are a lot of news stories about guilty parties, crime syndicates and popular figures in politics and the society who have been found guilty of bribing judges or blackmailing jury members. Usually judges and jurors are bribed with money, political favours, and one night stands with women you see on sites that feature live girls online, among other things.

In Canada, a woman was convicted for trying to bribe a juror member. According to reports, Erica Levin, the wife of a psychiatrist who was being indicted for three counts of sexual assaults, offered money to one of the jurors. In return, the juror should vote for the acquittal of Erica Levin’s husband.

Bribing and Blackmailing in the Justice System

Based on the California Penal Code section 92, bribing a judge or a juror is only considered as a pay off if a person offered something valuable to the judges or jurors. In return, these people will make a judgment that is favourable to the person who bribed them. On the one hand, blackmail is somewhat similar to bribery. The only distinction is the methods or means of doing it. When blackmailing judges or jurors, there are threats involved.

According to the WND.com, the last federal judge accused of accepting a pay-off was Judge Alcee Hastings. He was the judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Even if Hastings was impeached from his post, he was never sent down for it. In fact, he even got elected as a congressman.

Given that the judges and jurors hold the life of people who are being charged with something, they become the primary targets of briberies and blackmails. Since the primary goal of trials and court cases is to give a fair, honest and impartial ruling, cases of briberies and blackmails must be dealt with force. More so, preventive measures must be instituted in ensuring that jury members will not be blackmailed by anyone. For instance, instigation of bribery in the judiciary can be shunned if strong penalties will be implemented for those who will break their duties.

Health Tests for Jurors

Jurors play a very important role during trials and without them the court will not be able to make accomplish their objective. These individuals work hand in hand together in becoming part of the court itself. This is the reason why before one becomes part of the jury, they must pass a number of tests in order to become eligible for the service. One of these tests includes the examination of each and every one of the applicants health. Let us explore the health tests jurors must pass before they are accepted for jury duty.

It should be noted that jurors are usually selected among the list of the electoral register of a constituency within the court’s jurisdiction. As mentioned earlier, before they can be included in the pool of potential jurors, they need to be mentally or physically fit to be able to carry out the duties of a juror. In addition, the person needs to have an adequate command and understanding of the English language which will allow him or her to properly carry out their respective duties. These individuals will be doing quite a lot of reading and listening in and out of the court making it necessary to have such comprehension.

Minor disabilities such as hearing problems can be relieved with the help of a few court adjustments. For instance, hearing induction loops is what most courts have today and these are known as a special type of sound system for use by people with hearing aids. As a result hearing problems oftentimes is not strong reason to avoid jury duties.

There is however health concerns that makes applying for jury duties almost impossible. One example of this is with regards to the dyslexia.  Characterized by trouble with reading despite normal intelligence, dyslexia, also known as reading disorder that affects young and old people alike. Among the list of common issues include the difficulty in spelling words, reading quickly, writing words, pronouncing words when reading aloud and understanding what one reads

As mentioned earlier, in order to be eligible to serve on jury, one needs to have a solid reading comprehension. This becomes quite problematic in the case of a dyslexic individual as this cases him or her to have severe reading problems is considered unfit to serve on a jury. The court conducts dyslexia testing that is include in their health examination. If the results are positive, a person has a huge likelihood of being excluded in jury service.

The disabled community was able to take a huge load off their backs with the emergence of the Mental Health (Discrimination) Act of 2013. This aims to help these individual relieve themselves from jury duties. Furthermore, the Mental Capacity Act of 2005 deems a person who lacks capacity to serve as a juror disqualified from service.

Being one of the jurors can be both an exciting and rewarding experience to participants. With that being said, this is not all fun and games especially since their job needs to be taken seriously at all times. As a result, people are advised to apply to jury duties only when they feel they are able to perform these activities at any given time when the need calls for them to do so and furthermore without any reservations.