[cstaylor]

There is no positive side to this decision. Sounds like Britain is moving even closer to a police state:

And the so-called double jeopardy rule, where a defendant cannot be tried twice for the same offence, could also be abolished.

Other measures in the White Paper on the reform of the criminal justice system include proposals to reduce the numbers of middle class people who exempt themselves from jury service because of work obligations

How are they going to do this? By not having a jury?

According to reports, the reforms, intended to improve conviction rates, will include new police powers to impose bail conditions, including electronic tagging, on suspects who have yet to be charged.

This isn't a statistics game... who cares about "conviction rates"... if the person is guilty, then they are guilty, but this article makes it sound like a high convinction rate is good (on the contrary, it shows that the State has nothing dampening its power over the people)

[befamfivh]

I'd rather have a well-educated well-informed and impartial judge decide my fate than 6 or 12 possibly ignorant and dissinterested peers...

On the other hand, if the judge is motivated by some political agenda (as almost all judges are to some extent here in the states thanks to democracy) and the accused doesn't fit in with that agenda... well that would be really bad.

[cstaylor]

I'd rather have a well-educated well-informed and impartial judge decide my fate than 6 or 12 possibly ignorant and dissinterested peers...

As long as the juries are chosen properly (I've been on jury duty once, and boy, do they screen possible jury members), it is statistically more likely that the accused will receive a fairer outcome than the response of a single judge.

On the other hand, if the judge is motivated by some political agenda (as almost all judges are to some extent here in the states thanks to democracy) and the accused doesn't fit in with that agenda... well that would be really bad.

Understatement of the year... and by removing juries we remove the citizen from deciding the fate of the accused... very scary stuff.