Juries - miscellaneous detail

Miscellaneous detail
A civic duty	Must attend if physically able to do so or face the possibility of punishment for contempt of court.
Time served by jurors	Jurors are normally called for a fortnight, but the average length of a contested case in the Crown Court is 7 hours.
No payment	They are not paid for their service, but are reimbursed for lost earnings and out-of-pocket expenses.
The verdict - "guilty" or "not guilty"	The jury's verdict, whether guilty or not guilty (and no other verdict is possible except where the law allows a finding of guilty of a lesser offence e.g. in murder cases), should normally be unanimous, in other words they must all agree with the decision.
Majority verdicts	After a minimum of two hours' discussion (and 10 minutes settling down time), the judge may accept a verdict on which at least ten of the twelve jurors are agreed (or at least nine if two of the original twelve have been discharged because of illness or some other cause). The foreman of the jury must state the numbers of the jurors agreeing and disagreeing with the verdict. If a jury returns a verdict of not guilty, the jury are not asked whether it was unanimous or by a majority Majority verdicts lessen the chance that one juror will be bribed or threatened to bring in a not guilty verdict, this is called "jury nobbling".
Judge only trial
Trial without a jury	Since July 2006 a trial may be conducted without a jury where there is a danger of jury tampering (Section 44 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003). The Judge may order such a trial if he is satisfied that there is evidence of a real and present danger that jury tampering would take place and notwithstanding any steps (police protection) to prevent tampering, the likelihood that it would take place would be so substantial as to make it necessary in the interests of justice for the trial to be conducted without a jury.