In the eighteenth century Sir William Blackstone described the right to trial by jury as “the glory of the English Law”. Two centuries later Lord Devlin argued that juries were “the lamp that shows that freedom lives”. Lord Devlin contended that the right to trial by jury ensured citizens “got the justice they liked and not the sort of justice that the government or the lawyers or any body of experts thought was good for them”.
Given these views, both Blackstone and Devlin must be turning in their graves at the news that three men charged with armed robbery are set to face the first criminal trial without a jury in England and Wales for 400 years. The historic trial proceeds following the Court of Appeal ruling in June that the “very significant” danger of jury tampering in the case left trial without jury as the only route to reach justice.
