The Louise Woodward trial understandably raised remarkable passions in both the United States and Britain, and apparently also far beyond there.

The considerable variety of points of controversy, nearly all emotionally contested, still renders difficult any dispassionate overview.

However, there must be severe disquiet that confidence in the system of adjudication involved cannot but suffer damage as a result of such strongly held views on the justice of the case.

Whatever the merits in the case, serious consideration of many of its aspects is called for.At the centre of most of the fraught issues is the hapless jury.

The fact that jurors themselves in the less inhibited American ethos admitted that they felt constrained to convict the accused of a far more serious and heavily punished crime than they thought deserved must raise deep worries.

That appears palpable grave injustice, but there seems to be no easy and straightforward way of putting things right that would be likely to command universal consensus.

Moreover, any means of doing so can take an agonisingly long time, especially in Britain where there is no jurisdiction in the trial judge to quash or amend the verdict as there is in Massachusetts.At the end of such trials as the Woodward one everyone outside the jury room, but particularly, of course, the convicted accused, can be left conjecturing what factor or factors may have weighed with the jury and even whether there has been some fundamental misconception, or even sheer naked prejudice.

The more controversial the verdict the more the conjecturing and the greater harm to the reputation of the system for justice.At the heart of all this is the oracular character of Anglo-American jury trial.

In criminal trials the jury delivers just a bald general verdict, and that is that.

That is, of course, how the system has developed over the centuries, and that development has seemed an integral part of the fundamental need to sustain the independence of juries.

It certainly also seems to have become part of the general mystique of juries as a major bulwark against tyranny and authoritarianism.

Yet, when viewed dispassionately, this oracular function appears in no way necessary for juries' independence.

That principle rests on freedom from sanction both criminal and civil for their verdicts, in much the same way as judicial independence does.

No one is likely to wish to change it: juries must never be needing to look over their shoulders as they make their judgments.

Of course, even that independence cannot be totally absolute: corrupt jurors must not escape retribution.

But beyond that, they must suffer no inhibition.STATEMENTS OF REASONSIf the jury is, and has lon g been, regarded as the best institution for achieving justice in criminal cases and sustaining confidence in the trial system, there has been more recently emerging an appreciation of another apparent requirement for achieving justice across the whole range of judicial and governmental decision-making: the principle that anyone adversely affected by a decision has the right to see and study a written statement of the reasons and reasoning of the tribunal or agency that has made it.

That principle now extends far beyond the duty of judges to issue reasoned judgments.

More humble tribunals, inspectors, even purposely informal bodies such as rent assessment committees charged with assessing residential rents, have to deliver statements which adequately indicate how they reached the conclusions they did.This is all so healthy and reasonable it is a wonder it has taken so long to attain.

It can admittedly be no easy task at times, but the values promoted fully justify the labour and time involved.The question accordingly arises, why should juries be virtually alone exempted from such an exercise of basic justice? Why should someone facing deprivation of liberty (even of life in some jurisdictions) have to be content with a totally unexplained and possibly inexplicable verdict when, for instance, a landlord or tenant can insist on reasons for a modest decrease or increase in rent beyond that claimed? Verdicts of juries are expected to be at least as rational as those of bodies and functionaries now bound to state reasons and those verdicts are often likely to be of at least as much moment to those subject to them as decisions of any of the other agencies.DIFFICULTY OF FORMULATIONAnyone who has to commence drafting reasons for decisions will know that it is rarely an easy task and sometimes an intimidating one.

Accordingly, it would be a very heavy burden on unskilled and inexperienced jurors and a very unfair one unless they were accorded considerable assistance in the task.

To that end at least two means of assistance may be contemplated.The first method of resolution would involve a lawyer skilled in drafting reason for decision sitting with them so as to help them extract from their arguments a full set of the issues they had perceived and the conclusions they had drawn on them.

This method is likely to be wholly unacceptable to those who prize the independence of juries: the essential character of the jury system is that lay citizens shall decide issues of guilt or innocence amongst themselves without any possibility, actual or apparent, of interference or influence from anyone else once they have left court to consider their verdict.The second method would be much less radically different from existing practice and constitute no diminution of juries' cherished independence.

It would involve the judge presiding over the trial handing to the jury a written set of issues arising from the trial which they should consider and advert to in their deliberations and their reasons for decision.

Such set of issues could usefully be handed to the prosecuting and defending counsel before their final addresses to the jury with the opportunity for each of them to submit arguments for the amendment, supplementation or deletion of the issues; and the jury too should be able to advance queries and suggestions to the judge towards finalising the set of issues it has to consider.

Nor would it be totally revolutionary: judges have always had power, in criminal as well as civil cases, to require special verdicts from juries on particular issues within the general one, even though that power appears little used in criminal cases and the special verdicts are still delivered oracularly.In a jurisdiction such as Massachusetts, where a full judicial summing up after counsel's final addresses is distrusted in accordance with perceived democratic values, such a procedure for evolving issues with its essentially consensual character would appear to constitute no infringement of values.

In England, whether or not it prompted a similarly reduced role for the judge's summing up, it ought to be welcomed as lessening the frequently voiced complaint that judges sometimes overinfluence juries.

In both types of jurisdiction the judge would still need to give the jury full guidance on all points of law involved.

In fact, there might be great merit in the judge's giving such guidance also in writing and accompanying the set of issues; and also merit in allowing counsel opportunity to challenge or suggest amendment to such guidance before they make their final addresses.

Anything which achieves the most extensive agreement on what has to be decided and reduces the need to go later on appeal must surely be welcome.POSSIBLE DRAWBACKS AND ADVANTAGESThree likely objections would be: 1.

juries might feel inhibited in exercising their function; 2.

the process could increase the length and so the cost of trials; and 3.

fear of taking away juries' freedom to issue principled acquittals regardless of the strict law.1.

Such an objection is acutely debatable.

Many good jurors are likely to welcome help in structuring their discussions, especially if any of their colleagues proved not only dogmatic, but haphazard in approach.

Moreover, bodies that have taken on the responsibility -- and sworn oaths -- to produce defensible justice, are scarcely entitled to claim freedom from the discipline of articulated rational deduction.2.

In England, no judge should prepare a summing up without identifying all relevant issues, and articulating them in writing might just as easily simplify and shorten his work as prolong it.

Counsel too might find that the presence of such a text in the jurors' hands might well prod them into more succinct and pointed arguments in final addresses whilst having to cover all issues.

If, too, the exercise reduces the incidence of appeals as would be one expectation of the idea, that should count high in the time and cost assessment.

In Massachusetts the absence of a full judicial summing up might seem to affect this suggested balance, but even in such jurisdictions the reduction in need for subsequent judicial examination and alteration of jury verdicts as happened in the Woodward case as well as appeal court involvement could well do much to restore the same balance.

At the same time the text of the issues could confer the bonus of converting Counsel to more clinical and less emotive presentations of their cases.Most crucial of all, however, is the consideration that if the change in process lessens the incidence of grave injustices and also appears to do so, even any extra time and expense (in any case likely to be modest) will be a price worth the paying.

In many criminal cases too the issues are likely to be few and simple, especially where most turns on credibility of one or two witnesses, so that the extra price there will be marginal, while in more complex cases such as the Woodward one the benefits for clarity and confidence alike would amply warrant any increase.3.

There may be the fear that such a change would preclude the prized right of a jury to bring in an acq uittal regardless of the evidence because it regards a conviction as morally unacceptable.

That very real objection could, it is believed, be adequately met by a requirement that any statement of issues must end with the most unequivocal proclamation of the jury's right to do so, sanctioned by automatic avoidance and retrial if omitted.Against that can be set a number of likely benefits:-- The better structuring of the debate in the jury room, besides helping good jurors more confidently and speedily assemble rational conclusions and verdicts based on them, would also enable them more easily to resist prejudiced and pig-headed colleagues, who would have to face the sobering discipline of formulating responses to specific questions contained in the issue.-- Whenever an appeal from a jury's verdict is heard the appeal court would no longer be scrutinising the trial judge's formulations in his summing up (or in his post-trial exercise of discretion as in Massachusetts) and thus speculating how the jury may or may not have been affected, but actually examining the jury's own reasoning.

This would not only be more direct and satisfactory in its own right, but also save the court from agonising over its discretion to sustain the jury's verdict regardless of perceived error in the judge.-- This in turn would mean that juries would be spared the occasional frustration of having their verdict overturned for a misdirection that in reality did not affect the validity of their decision.-- A further benefit would be that those advising a convict on an appeal could also go straight to the jury's own words instead of picking over a judge's formulations.-- That in turn should enable those advisers (and the prosecution in due course) to discover more quickly and more easily as well as more surely the grounds on which an appeal might be expected to succeed.

Anything that produced quicker resolution of cases where convicted persons have languished in gaol for well over the decade must be welcome.-- Much less tangibly, but still vastly important, is the consideration that conscientious jurors, faced later with the discovery of fresh evidence or a radical change in public mood, will have a text with which they can reassure themselves and convince others that they did in fact do all they could to achieve a just result in the circumstances known to them at the time.-- One other possible benefit is that because one should be able to identify more surely any misjudgments by juries it may well in time enable certain exclusions of potentially relevant evidence (particularly hearsay) to be relaxed, even if not eliminated.

Good sense would suggest that such a change were better delayed till a judgment could safely be made on the overall working of the new process.ACQUITTALSIt might be thought that balance, if not logic, would require the jury to produce a similar statement of reasons whenever they acquit an accused.

The argument does have attractions.

Victims of crimes and their families might fairly feel they should be accorded such a provision.

No doubt also, legal and social researchers would regard availability of such material as highly valuable, and prosecuting authorities might wish to learn from the reasons for their failing in the case.

However, there is also a need for caution, especially in these days when civil actions are increasingly being used effectively to re-try acquitted defendants.In such circumstances it might be wiser to defer any decision to introduce such a seemingly reciprocal process for some time so as to form a be tter judgment on how the change as regards convictions was seen to be operating.

Certainly, the major worries about injustice in the system are rightly concerned primarily with possibly wrongful convictions and the lesser concerns may better be left undealt with for the time being.There is a terrible tendency, especially in Anglo-American societies, to regard institutions and processes that have been evolved successfully to safeguard and promote some accepted fundamental value as requiring primary protection regardless of whether they still fully carry out the function for which they became celebrated.

The jury is an excellent example.

It evolved laboriously from strange beginnings and ultimately achieved its status of bulwark for citizens' freedoms and against autocracy.

However, its raison d'etre is its capacity to achieve justice better than any other device in the eyes of its adopters.Sadly, the devotion to the acknowledged success tends to rob its protagonists of the readiness, even the ability, to see when the achievement of justice it has attained in the past may be masking the need to make changes better to foster and protect the ultimate value of justice which alone justifies it.It is thought that the abandonment of the oracular privilege of juries should substantially narrow the risks of injustice.

However, it must always be borne in mind that the limitations of humanity prevent any avoidance of all injustice even in a well-run system.

The fact that vital evidence is seen on occasions not to have been available at time of trial suggests such an incidence where its existence never comes to light.

Again, developments in forensic science have shown up earlier errors and misconceptions, while there will always be risk from the convincing uninhibited liar and the equally convincing fantasist: no jury is likely to have failed to believe Christie rather than poor Timothy Evans in the Rillington Place murders.

Moreover, although the opportunities should be greatly reduced by statement of reasons, there may still always be a successfully cloaked prejudice behind carefully constructed reasons which cannot be detected or can only be suspected.

That said, any diminution in risk of injustice must not only be welcome in itself, but also important for the credibility of any system of justice.