Report comment

"Juries are snapshots of society. They are invariably age and gender diverse. They will reflect the racial composition of the community. Twelve is a sufficient number to allow for checks, balances and wide-ranging opinion. No one has, yet, come up with a system said to be fairer than a pick-and-mix sample of the public."

this is undoubtedly true and presented by this article as a strength of the jury system. why then would we seek to undermine this very strength by an attempt to inculcate in them "correct thinking" (based on whichever expert is flavour of the day on rape myths)? In an average jury you may well have people that think that a female in a short dress is "asking for it," but you may very well also have dyed in the wool misandrist (assuming of course the complainant is female and the accused male).

surely the main reason for the low rate of success in rape cases is the fact that there is almost always only one piece of direct evidence - being the testimony of the complainant, and the jury has the uneviable task of assessing this against what the defendant says?