Can I ask for a Judge Trial - UK In the UK, at least by my understanding, most trials are heard in a magistrates' court without a jury. Only the most serious crimes are heard in the Crown Court and require a jury verdict. However, if I were being tried for a serious crime, say murder, and I don't trust the intelligence of the general public, could I request that my case be decided purely by a judge? Given the right to a jury trial is supposedly a right, surely one should be able to waive it?
There is nothing (that I can find) that allows for a defendant to elect for a trial without a jury in the Crown Court but such trials are possible, if there is evidence of jury tampering, under section 44 Criminal Justice Act 2003: [...] (2)The prosecution may apply to a judge of the Crown Court for the trial to be conducted without a jury. (3)If an application under subsection (2) is made and the judge is satisfied that both of the following two conditions are fulfilled, he must make an order that the trial is to be conducted without a jury; but if he is not so satisfied he must refuse the application. (4)The first condition is that there is evidence of a real and present danger that jury tampering would take place. (5)The second condition is that, notwithstanding any steps (including the provision of police protection) which might reasonably be taken to prevent jury 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. [...] Althought the 2003 Act applies throughout to united-kingdom, there are also special provisions for terrorism-related trials in northern-ireland at section 1 Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act 2007: (1)This section applies in relation to a person charged with one or more indictable offences (“the defendant”). (2)The Director of Public Prosecutions for Northern Ireland may issue a certificate that any trial on indictment of the defendant (and of any person committed for trial with the defendant) is to be conducted without a jury if— (a)he suspects that any of the following conditions is met, and (b)he is satisfied that in view of this there is a risk that the administration of justice might be impaired if the trial were to be conducted with a jury. (3)Condition 1 is that the defendant is, or is an associate (see subsection (9)) of, a person who— (a)is a member of a proscribed organisation (see subsection (10)), or (b)has at any time been a member of an organisation that was, at that time, a proscribed organisation. (4)Condition 2 is that— (a)the offence or any of the offences was committed on behalf of a proscribed organisation, or (b)a proscribed organisation was otherwise involved with, or assisted in, the carrying out of the offence or any of the offences. (5)Condition 3 is that an attempt has been made to prejudice the investigation or prosecution of the offence or any of the offences and— (a)the attempt was made on behalf of a proscribed organisation, or (b)a proscribed organisation was otherwise involved with, or assisted in, the attempt. (6)Condition 4 is that the offence or any of the offences was committed to any extent (whether directly or indirectly) as a result of, in connection with or in response to religious or political hostility of one person or group of persons towards another person or group of persons. And, for completeness, section 43 of the 2003 Act is prospective legislation (i.e. not in force) for certain fraud cases to be conducted without a jury due to the complexity and/or length of the trial.
It is the job of the judge to instruct the jury about the law. If Texas had pattern instructions I'd look up what the instruction is for this matter, but you don't, so I don't know what the judge would say. But it is the judge's sole prerogative to instruct the jury in the law. If the question is a "commitment question", then it is an improper question and should be disallowed, see Stendefer v. State. The question "Would you presume someone guilty if he or she refused a breath test on their refusal alone?" is such a commitment question, and is disallowed. Similarly, "If the evidence, in a hypothetical case, showed that a person was arrested and they had a crack pipe in their pocket, and they had a residue amount in it, and it could be measured, and it could be seen, is there anyone who could not convict a person, based on that" (Atkins v. State, 951 S.W.2d 787). An improper commitment question could be of the type "could you refrain...": Let us assume that you are considering in the penalty phase of any capital murder case, okay? And some of the evidence that has come in shows that the victim's family was greatly impacted and terribly grieved and greatly harmed by the facts․Can you assure us that the knowledge of those facts would not prevent you or substantially impair you in considering a life sentence in such a case (Penry v. State, 903 S.W.2d 715). One way in which a commitment question can be legal is if it asks basically "can you uphold the law?", for example "can you consider probation in a murder case?", or "are you willing to consider mitigating circumstances". The wrong answer to those questions will lead to a for-cause dismissal. The third question is flagrantly improper, the first is rather improper, and the second probably is. If the question can be framed in terms of a candidate's willingness to follow the law, then it should be legal.
Unless you are an ambassador or one of the US states, SCOTUS doesn't have original jurisdiction over your lawsuit, so they can't hear it either. If you've named all the judges of all the courts that do have jurisdiction, then one of them will handle it anyway, under the doctrine of necessity noted before. For cases that do fall within the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction, a jury trial is theoretically possible, but it appears it has not occurred since the 1790s, and only one has surviving records: Georgia v. Brailsford in 1794. See &quot;Special Juries in the Supreme Court&quot; by Lochlan F. Shelfer, Yale Law Journal 123:1, 2013-2014. Otherwise, non-jury original jurisdiction cases are usually delegated to a special master, a sort of &quot;contract judge&quot; who hears all the evidence and recommends a judgment that the full court typically rubber-stamps.
Yes, one should not publish evidence until a verdict is reached. This includes any possible appeals. In common law, doing so has long been one of the contempt of court offences called sub judice, or &quot;publishing information that interferes with a fair trial&quot;. The main point is that the jury should not be influenced by any information other than what they hear in the courtroom. In New Zealand, the offence was recently codified.
My understanding is that defendants in Britain have to prove statements true by the preponderance of evidence, whereas in the U.S. the standard of evidence is "compelling" (a lower standard). This is not the case. Preponderance of the evidence can still be the burden of proof in the United States (in a civil libel case, although it must be proof beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal libel case). But, the difference is in what has to be proved. In Britain, it appears to be necessary to show that the statements are true in order to prevail. In the U.S., it is merely necessary to show in a case like this one (because it involves a matter of public concern) that the statements were made with knowledge that they were false, or with reckless disregard to the truth or falsity of the statements made. A factual basis for believing the statements made to be true is a defense if the basis is at all reasonable, and is a complete defense if the factual basis for making the statement is disclosed and that is true or believed to be true by the speaker. It is not necessary for the statements to actually be true under U.S. law in a case such as this one, although actual truth is also a defense, which is not the case in all circumstances in U.K. law, and was not the case under the historical common law. Historically, defamation claims could be brought for statements critical of the monarch, for statements pointing out the natural infirmities of someone for example by mocking a person with low IQ, or for speaking ill of the dead. Furthermore, the U.S. has a variety of doctrines that make it hard to find that a false statement was made in the first place. For example, statements of opinion are not actionable and many of the alleged falsehoods in the McLibel case would be considered to be statements of opinion in U.S. law rather than statements of fact. Similarly, U.S. law does not require that statements be literally true, and instead recognizes that a defendant may have been engaged in using hyperbole, or may have gotten the gist of the accusation right even though strictly speaking the exact statement made is not technically true (e.g. someone might say that a company paid a "penalty" when it actually paid a settlement amount in a lawsuit seeking a penalty or paid an amount representing compensatory damages only rather than a penalty amount). In the same vein, it must be clear from the context of the statement that the person making it intended it to be received as a truthful account and not a mere parody or satire which was intended to be understood as false. For example, I couldn't sue someone who made a knowingly false statement that I assassinated King George V, who died several decades before I was born, or that I was telepathically controlling my uncle because I had a space alien parasite in my spine. Those claims are so absurd that they would be inferred to intended to be fictional on their face. Certain kinds of falsehoods (e.g. lying about one's military record in a a political campaign) are simply not actionable as a matter of law, no matter what, as the harm is not concrete enough. There is not, however, necessarily a defense under U.S. law to defamation liability if the defendant said many things that were true, but something else that would be defamatory in isolation. For example, even if everything else were true, if the defendant had also stated that the CEO of the Plaintiff was convicted of leading a Nazi concentration camp and killed millions of people, which would have been possible given the CEO's age, knowing perfectly well that the person with a similar name to the CEO who did so was someone else who died an untimely death decades ago, that statement might be defamatory and actionable (at least by the CEO personally and probably by the company if it was alleged that he was hired despite the fact that the company was aware of this circumstance).
As a comment by @DavidSchwartz notes, this is not wrong. Questions of law but not fact are allowed. It is worth noting that the line drawn is arbitrary. In Colorado, where I practice, jurors issue written questions (pre-reviewed by the judge and counsel for all parties before being presented) to witnesses at the close of the testimony of each witness called by a party to testify. This is very helpful to counsel, as it provides indirect evidence of whether the jury understands what they are being told, and often juries will directly ask questions that for tactical reasons, both parties have refrained from asking that go to the heart of the matter. It also frequently clarifies misunderstandings that trained legal professionals assumed were not made about terminology. This is more problematic in criminal trials, where jury questions could provide evidence pushing a case over the threshold of proof needed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the prosecution failed to provide, than in civil cases with a preponderance of the evidence standard. Also, as a matter of reality, when jurors ask questions, counsel often loathe to object even when they have valid grounds to do so, for fear of offending the decision-maker, unless it is really critical to keep certain information away from the jury.
These questions are typically left to the discretion of the judge in whose courtroom the presentation is happening. It is very common to see these types of devices in trial courts, but they are much less common in appellate courts, and I doubt you'd ever see one in the United States Supreme Court, where the arguments are essentially limited to oral presentations.
It is the jury's job to evaluate the credibility of the witnesses, and it is the judge's job to inform them of that responsbility. It is not appropriate, however, for the judge to indicate to the jury what answer they should come to on those questions. In Quercia v. United States, 289 U.S. 466 (1933), the defendant in a drug case took the stand to deny the charges. Before the jury went to deliberate, the judge made the following observation: I am going to tell you what I think of the defendant's testimony. You may have noticed, Mr. Foreman and gentlemen, that he wiped his hands during his testimony. It is rather a curious thing, but that is almost always an indication of lying. Why it should be so we don't know, but that is the fact. I think that every single word that man said, except when he agreed with the Government's testimony, was a lie. The jury convicted, but the U.S. Supreme Court reversed, holding that the instruction was an error. It said that the judge has the right, generally speaking, to comment on the evidence, but that right is not unlimited, because juries are likely to be swayed by the judge's assessments, even if he instructs them to make their own decisions: The influence of the trial judge on the jury is necessarily and properly of great weight and his lightest word or intimation is received with deference, and may prove controlling. This court has accordingly emphasized the duty of the trial judge to use great care that an expression of opinion upon the evidence should be so given as not to mislead, and especially that it should not be one-sided; that deductions and theories not warranted by the evidence should be studiously avoided. The comment you seem to be imagining is a closer call than this, but I think most judges would agree it would be inappropriate. At a preliminary hearing, though, where there is no jury, there is no real problem with the judge making that comment. If I were the defense attorney, I'd be glad he did, as it would help inform my decision about whether to pursue a jury trial or a bench trial.