Prejudice

fancythat I think 'prejudice' in legal cases like this is to do with influencing potential jury members.

If someone is arrested for, let us say, knocking down and killing a child then in the drivers local area, people may be talking about the driver, exchanging stories about them, saying that they abuse their wife, kick cats, drive recklessly all the time, whether these thing are true or not, and generally bad mouthing them.

Now if the jurors at the trial for the child's death, all came from the drivers local area, they may well go into court with a really negative attitude to th defendant, and be likely to convict the driver even though, once the case is examined, it is clear the child ran out from between two parked cars and the driver could not avoid them.

The prejudice laws aim to make sure that as far as possible those involved in judging a case have not been prejudiced against a defendant in any way before the court case, so if anyone starts sharing information about the person, their past, family history previous convictions etc etc publicly, information that might prejudice the chance of the defendant having a fair trial, they lay themselves open to a criminal charge.

GNHQ have already warned posters about this. However, as many don't read the whole thread, they may miss the advice.

I was going to post something, but thought the better of it, because it is a live case.

It is literally what it means FannyC - ie prejudging because of uncorroborated or idle speculation, or sharing of opinions in public which may cause undue influence. It is fundamental that cases are tried on the evidence alone so you can see why public discussion of the defendant, elements surrounding the case or the accusation itself should not only be disregarded (hard) but actually banned.

Apologies - I confused Fancythat and FannyC
My reply was of course to the former.

When I did jury service it was impressed upon us in the strongest possible terms, that any internet or other ‘research’ on the defendant during the trial, was strictly forbidden and would result in criminal charges.

There was a warning notice on the wall of the jury room about a former juror - a university lecturer - who’d been found guilty of this, and was banged up for 8 months.

I think partly what I am not understanding is, it takes a while before the actual jurors are contacted even at the beginning.
How can there be many jurors who already have not heard and seen things? About any high profile case?

I did post on the thread but then the warning came so I will not be posting any further. Is Scottish law different than English law in this respect?

fancythat

I think partly what I am not understanding is, it takes a while before the actual jurors are contacted even at the beginning.
How can there be many jurors who already have not heard and seen things? About any high profile case?

As a juror, you would be instructed to disregard anything you may have heard before a trial, to listen to the evidence and make a decision based on that alone.

Trials have been stopped because of discussion on social media which would have been prejudicial to the outcome.

Callistemon21 - Because it had been proven a juror had read something?

Witzend - And you hadnt researched anything or read anything before the trial began?

Foxygloves - So not "just" a case of having or think of having inside knowledge and/or posting it?
[Not that I have in the Peter Murrell case - I didint even know what Heid meant!].

maddyone

I did post on the thread but then the warning came so I will not be posting any further. Is Scottish law different than English law in this respect?

Yes it is. I posted this link on one of the other threads on this subject, but I'll repost it here as it sets things out quite well.
www.thenational.scot/news/23436112.contempt-court-cant-media-report-peter-murrells-arrest/

No one knows all the facts so I do dislike prejudging. Newspapers don’t help either, don’t believe what you read.

I keep meaning to say thank you to M0nica for her explanation.

Blondiescot helpful link.

If people are even not suposed to say whether they think someone may be guilty or innocent, then best in my opinion for GN and MN too for that matter, to stop all talk.

Callistemon21 - Because it had been proven a juror had read something?

In one case I remember, the case had been discussed on social media.

Tjhere was one case, where the trial was stopped and a retrial ordered because it was found thta jurors had been discussing the case online during the trial.

The jurors involved were prosecuted and fined, and I think, the ring leader was sentenced to a nominal time in prison.n

I remember a similar thing with the Michael Jackson paedophilia case. I was on a forum at the time and we weren’t even allowed to mention his name. You can imagine some of the strange descriptions to get around the ban.