Majority jury verdicts in England and Wales: a vestige of white supremacy?

Abstract

In England and Wales, the requirement for a unanimous jury verdict in criminal cases was abolished in 1967, marking a significant departure from a centuries-old legal tradition. Majority verdicts are now common practice, yet no research to date explores the origins of this sudden change to the jury system. In contrast, recent research in the US uncovered a connection between the conception of majority verdicts in Louisiana and Jim Crow era law-making, finding that majority verdicts were strategically introduced to suppress the black juror vote and facilitate quicker convictions to fuel free prison labour. The US Supreme Court later outlawed majority verdicts in a case known as Ramos v. Louisiana, amid recognition of their racist origins. Adopting the critical epistemological position guiding the US research, we consider how race and class underpinned the decision to introduce majority verdicts in England and Wales. Drawing on Home Office files and other archival materials, we find that an increase in eligible jurors from different racial and class backgrounds led to a perceived decline in the ‘calibre’ of jurors – reflective of wider public anxieties about Commonwealth immigration, Black Power and white disenfranchisement. We conclude that a desire to dilute the influence of ‘coloured’ migrants on juries contributed to the introduction of majority verdicts in England and Wales.

Introduction

Recognised as an ‘institution of democracy’, ¹ the jury is said to produce fair criminal justice outcomes. Prohibitions on the disclosure of juror votes and deliberation in England and Wales ² mean there is limited transparency in the jury decision-making process − a barrier to exploring the influence of race on jury verdicts in real cases. Unlike England and Wales, race and juries are the subject of a significant body of empirical study in the US. This literature provides compelling evidence that race influences jury decision-making and trial outcomes, whether this be influenced by a defendant’s race, ³ or the jury’s racial composition. ⁴ In England and Wales, the largest and frequently cited empirical studies on juries argue the contrary, describing jury verdicts as the ‘one stage in the criminal justice system where black and minority ethnic groups do not face persistent disproportionality’. ⁵ However, there remains limited transparency in how real juries deliberate outside of experimental conditions.

Defendants in jury trials face ‘the greatest potential loss of liberty’, ⁶ making it imperative that convictions are absent of doubt and prejudice. Historically, unanimous verdicts were required in all criminal cases in England and Wales. However, majority (non-unanimous) verdicts were introduced through the Criminal Justice Act 1967, by the then home secretary, Roy Jenkins, permitting a verdict when up to two jurors disagreed. Majority verdicts are common practice where a jury cannot decide unanimously, constituting around 15 per cent of all convictions following a Crown Court trial annually, meaning a significant number of defendants are convicted each year where at least one juror was not sure of their guilt. Despite their prevalence, no research to date explores the origins of majority verdicts in England and Wales, or their impact on juror decision-making. Indeed, the prevention of ‘nobbling’ − the corruption of jurors through bribery or intimidation − is widely accepted as the justification for their introduction, and this assertion has not been challenged until now.

Contrarily, in the US it is argued that majority verdicts remove a safeguard against wrongful convictions, with evidence demonstrating that a disproportionate number of exonerees were convicted by majority verdicts. ⁷ While in England and Wales it has been argued that majority verdicts can prevent individual biases from dictating jury decision-making, ⁸ empirical research from the US demonstrates that juries required to achieve unanimity deliberate more thoroughly, ⁹ while majority verdicts are more likely to silence the voices of jurors from minority groups. ¹⁰ US research has also questioned the origins of majority verdicts in Louisiana and Oregon − the only states to adopt the practice. In 2020, a ground-breaking US Supreme Court case, Ramos v. Louisiana, ¹¹ ruled that majority verdicts could no longer be used to convict people of serious crimes, following recognition that their origins were rooted in racism. Evidence adduced in this case included archival research which demonstrated that majority verdicts in Louisiana served to suppress black jurors’ votes and uphold white supremacy following the ‘abolition’ of slavery. ¹²

While the context in which majority verdicts were introduced in England and Wales differs from that of Louisiana, the practice was similarly introduced during a time of anti-racist struggle, where the rights of negatively racialised people consumed political debate. This paper is part of a larger study which explores the relationship between race, majority verdicts and wrongful conviction. ¹³ Here we present findings from phase one, which explores the origins of majority verdicts in England and Wales, drawing on archival materials to establish whether this legislative change was rooted in prejudice.

We begin by outlining the mechanics and prevalence of majority verdicts in England and Wales, followed by a brief overview of the contemporary literature on majority verdicts in England and Wales and the US. While this does not capture the full scope of the debate, it offers insight into the protective versus harmful effects of majority verdicts, which are echoed in the parliamentary disputes in 1960s England. We then lay the foundation for our historical analysis by providing an overview of the US research behind Ramos, centring how this shaped the epistemological position guiding our analysis.

This analysis begins by contextualising the introduction of majority verdicts in England and Wales within a socio-political climate marked by public anxieties about immigration, Black Power and white disenfranchisement. Drawing on the 1963 Departmental Committee on Jury Service, we centre how these anxieties manifested in concerns about juries, as the influx of ‘coloured’ migrants and the new ‘labouring class’ were denounced as a threat to the jury system. Finally, we address the parliamentary debate on the 1967 Criminal Justice Bill. Our findings refute Roy Jenkins’s claims of ‘nobbling’, revealing that majority verdicts were introduced with no evidence of their necessity, and in part, on the desire to dilute the influence of newly arrived Commonwealth citizens on juries. While this study is the first to explore the relationship between race, class and majority verdicts in England and Wales, it contributes to an existing body of literature which illustrates how discourse accompanying immigration in Britain intersects with law, power and racially exclusive notions of belonging.

Majority verdicts in England and Wales

Majority verdicts were introduced in England and Wales through the Criminal Justice Act 1967, later consolidated in the Juries Act 1974. Where there are twelve jurors, a majority verdict of ten to two or eleven to one is permitted. Where there are eleven jurors, a majority of ten to one is allowed, and where there are ten jurors, a majority of nine to one suffices. Where there are just nine jurors, a verdict must be unanimous. Majority verdicts apply to both acquittals and convictions, with the judge only giving the direction if the jury cannot reach a unanimous verdict after at least two hours of deliberation. ¹⁴ Case outcomes are the same whether the defendant was convicted unanimously or by a majority. As such, majority verdicts are not a mitigating factor in sentencing, nor do they provide ground for appeal. If a jury cannot agree following the majority direction they would be considered ‘hung’, possibly resulting in a re-trial.

Regularly published criminal court statistics for England and Wales do not include data on convictions reached by majority verdict. We acquired this information through a series of freedom of information requests. The data spans from 2014–2021, with cases missing from 2020–2021 due to a data recording platform transition. Of all Crown Court convictions following a guilty verdict on at least one count between 2014–2019, between 12 and 16 per cent were by majority verdict each year. This amounts to 9,516 convictions for this six-year period, and between 1,180 and 1,887 each year. The defendant’s ethnicity was not stated in 24 per cent of convictions. Of the cases where ethnicity is known, 17 per cent of all convictions involving black defendants were by majority verdict for this six-year period, compared to 14 per cent for the white and Asian group and 15 per cent for the mixed group. Although the black group consistently displayed a higher percentage of convictions by majority verdict compared to the white group (between 3 and 5 per cent), the disparity is minimal and the data indicates a relatively uniform distribution of convictions by majority verdict across all groups. However, with the defendant’s ethnicity unknown in nearly a quarter of all recorded convictions, more comprehensive data is required before conclusions can be drawn about the distribution of non-unanimous convictions by ethnicity.

Despite recommendations to do so more than a decade ago, ¹⁵ acquittals resulting from majority verdicts are not recorded. Zander and Henderson’s 1993 ‘Crown Court study’, ¹⁶ encompassing surveys completed by approximately 8,000 real jurors, is the only research in England and Wales that has demonstrated the prevalence of majority acquittals. The study found near parity between convictions and acquittals by majority verdict. Whether this holds true today is uncertain, but the consistent prevalence of convictions by majority verdict emphasises the need to understand their origins and impact on juror decision-making and case outcomes.

Excluding the minority voice and convicting the innocent?

In England and Wales, it has been argued that majority verdicts could safeguard against juror bias by preventing one or two racially (or otherwise) prejudiced jurors from dictating jury decision-making. ¹⁷ However, it is acknowledged that majority verdicts may also silence ‘a minority who opposed a racist majority’. ¹⁸ Thomas’s 2007 case simulation study, ‘Diversity and fairness in the jury system’, ¹⁹ found that ethnicity influenced the individual votes of some jurors in some cases. In such cases, ‘black or minority ethnic’ jurors were less likely to convict ‘black or minority ethnic’ defendants when compared to white defendants. The study also identified ‘same-race leniency’ from individual jurors of all ethnicities in particular cases, ²⁰ reflecting the findings of several US studies. ²¹ Findings of individual juror bias do not, however, tell us whether race influences overall verdicts. While a defendant’s ethnicity did not impact case outcomes in Thomas’s study, differential voting between jurors of different ethnicities raises questions about whether negatively racialised jurors’ votes are more likely to be side-lined when the majority direction applies.

Thomas’s 2010 study ‘Are juries fair?’, ²² which similarly adopted a case simulation method, found no evidence of discrimination against ‘black and minority ethnic’ defendants when examining voting splits amongst all-white hung juries. Yet, no research explores whether a racially mixed jury is more likely to be ‘hung’ or reach a non-unanimous decision, nor has it examined the relationship between a juror’s race and dissenting votes. Thomas’s 2007 study included racially mixed juries, finding that race did not influence overall verdicts. However, ‘black and minority ethnic’ jurors were a small minority ²³ on almost all the racially mixed juries included in the simulation. In the decisions rendered by these juries, almost all defendants were found not guilty by a majority verdict, or the jury was hung, making outcomes for all defendants similar. Nevertheless, the number of hung juries initially increased as the number of ‘black and minority ethnic’ jurors increased on the juries, ²⁴ and the study did not disclose the ethnicity of the dissenting jurors in the majority verdict decisions.

Despite only being implemented in Louisiana and Oregon, majority verdicts have raised concern among legal scholars and campaigners in the US. US research findings cannot be assumed to apply to England and Wales, not least because England and Wales’s minimum deliberation period safeguards against swift majority verdicts. Nonetheless, US empirical research has demonstrated that juries required to achieve unanimity deliberate more thoroughly, and ‘non-participation’ during the deliberation process decreases. ²⁵ More specifically, small factions are less likely to speak during deliberations under majority rules. ²⁶ Likewise, research has found that racially mixed juries deliberate for longer and exchange a wider range of information, ²⁷ while cognitive behavioural scientists from the UK similarly argue that juror heterogeneity limits the effects of bias. ²⁸

US research has also demonstrated that black jurors are overrepresented amongst those casting ballots for ‘not guilty’, while white jurors are underrepresented. ²⁹ Most non-unanimous verdicts in the US were convictions rather than acquittals, meaning black jurors are more likely to have cast the ‘empty’ votes where defendants were convicted. ³⁰ It is therefore argued that majority verdicts can diminish effective decision-making by circumventing the voices of jurors from minority groups, which can have calamitous consequences in cases of wrongful conviction, or where a jury has only one or two minority members. ³¹

These concerns are accompanied by fears that majority verdicts lead to more wrongful convictions. Advocates for majority verdicts argue that they eliminate the irrational juror from preventing a correct conviction, while those opposed argue that majority verdicts circumvent a rational juror from preventing a wrongful conviction. ³² Extensive research by US media outlet, The Advocate, found that 56 per cent of convictions in Louisiana whereby the defendant was later proven innocent were the result of a majority verdict, ³³ while other research demonstrates that unanimous verdicts minimise the probability of trial error. ³⁴ Arguably, the risks of wrongful conviction are recognised in the fact that majority verdicts are not accepted in death penalty cases in the US, and an ‘unwillingness to accept majority verdicts’ in serious cases in other jurisdictions. ³⁵

The protective versus harmful effects of majority verdicts were debated during the introduction of the Criminal Justice Bill in 1967, as later explored in this paper.

Majority verdicts in Louisiana: a vestige of white supremacy

Majority verdicts were introduced during Louisiana’s 1898 constitutional convention. ³⁶ The convention’s purpose was to consider voting rights, and majority verdicts were hardly mentioned. However, archival research which explored commentary from the convention, and the broader political and economic context at the time, demonstrated how the adoption of majority verdicts in Louisiana was racially motivated. ³⁷ Indeed, the 134 white delegates at the convention declared that their ‘mission was . . . to establish the supremacy of the white race’. ³⁸ Simultaneously, recently emancipated black people were depicted by the media as ‘ignorant of the responsibilities of jurors, unable to discriminate between truth and falsehood in testimony’ and easily ‘corrupted by bribes’. ³⁹ Black people were perceived to ‘dilute’ jury pools, help black defendants avoid punishment, ⁴⁰ and show defendants undue leniency. Fears about ‘negro domination’ and ‘white disenfranchisement’ were widespread, as Louisianans were concerned that white people would not receive a fair trial if ‘Negro jurors were impaneled’. ⁴¹ Many white Southerners therefore agreed that ‘the jury system must be radically changed if the negroes are to continue as jurymen’. ⁴²

In her paper, ‘How the narrative about Louisiana’s non-unanimous criminal jury system became a person of interest in the case against the Deep South’, Allen-Bell sets out the ‘counter-story’ on majority verdicts – the opposite to the widely accepted narrative which often reinforces oppression. ⁴³ She situates majority verdicts within a trajectory of intersecting Southern laws intended to criminalise black life, including prison labour through convict leasing. In this period, the proportion of black prisoners increased from less than 1 per cent to 90 per cent in some states, meaning that a racial caste system resembling slavery continued for a predominantly black prison population. ⁴⁴ Abolishing unanimity was therefore indicative of Jim Crow law-making. First, majority verdicts meant that black jurors could not use their new voting powers to prevent convictions of black defendants. ⁴⁵ Second, majority verdicts allowed for quicker convictions, facilitating a production line of free prison labour. ⁴⁶

Majority verdicts in Oregon ⁴⁷ have similarly been traced to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and efforts to ‘dilute the influence of racial and ethnic and religious minorities on Oregon juries’. ⁴⁸ Placing the introduction of majority verdicts within the political and economic relations of the Reconstruction period therefore uncovered how the law was enacted to disenfranchise newly empowered black people. Telling the ‘counter-narrative’ on majority verdicts elucidated their racist origin, contributing to a country-wide reinstated commitment to unanimity in Ramos v. Louisiana. ⁴⁹

Taking Allen-Bell’s work as a point of departure, this research set out to explore the ‘counter-story’, drawing on archival materials ⁵⁰ to raise a differing perspective to the hegemonic narrative surrounding the introduction of majority verdicts in England and Wales. Like Allen-Bell, we adopt the epistemological position that the hegemonic narrative, while presented as neutral, often reproduces hierarchy. The narrative therefore requires deconstruction, and the counter-narrative must be part of the equation if we are to confront power and uncover injustice. ⁵¹ We acknowledge that the ‘politics of the archives’ limits the extent to which we can tell the ‘counter-story’ − documents are themselves already ‘collections of editorial decisions and possible exclusions’, ⁵² particularly in the case of official government documents. However, in situating our findings within the broader socio-political context of anti-racist struggle in Britain, we bring to the surface the ‘counter-story’.

‘Race relations’ and anti-racist resistance in 1960s Britain

On 23 May 1963 the Home Office appointed a Departmental Committee on Jury Service (‘the Morris Committee’), chaired by Lord Morris, to ‘inquire into the law and practice in England and Wales regarding the qualifications for, exemptions from, and conditions of jury service’. ⁵³ This marked the inception of the political discourse surrounding majority verdicts during the 1960s. However, before delving into the implications of the Morris Committee on the introduction of majority verdicts, it is essential to contextualise these debates within the broader socio-political landscape in which they unfolded.

Like 1890s Louisiana, 1960s Britain was a period of reconstruction in which both ‘race’ and ‘economy’ were central to legal and political decision-making. A shortage of labour after the second world war saw Britain recruit thousands of West Indian and South Asian workers escaping the devastation of Britain’s imperial rule. ⁵⁴ Promised prosperity, they were met with a population who saw them as inferior and uncivilised. ⁵⁵ Police brutality and racist attacks from factions of the white population were commonplace, with the 1958 so-called ‘race riots’ occurring against this backdrop. Yet this violence was not blamed on white racism, but on the presence of non-white people in Britain.

This period saw the emergence of a ‘new racism’. ⁵⁶ The demise of empire and large-scale non-white immigration resulted in the ‘re-racialisation of national identity and citizenship’ ⁵⁷ as ‘race’ shifted from something mostly pertaining to overseas colonies, to the domesticities of Britain. ⁵⁸ ‘Race’ was now defined in terms of identity, nation and belonging and a virtually homogenously white nation was seemingly under threat from ‘alien’ culture. ⁵⁹ While racial attacks became ‘part of immigrant life’, ⁶⁰ immigration was seen to threaten the ‘British way of life’. The year 1964 saw what has been termed ‘Britain’s most racist election’ – where Conservative MP Peter Griffiths was elected on the slogan: ‘if you want a nigger for a neighbour vote Labour’. ⁶¹

The government responded to the so-called ‘immigrant problem’ with successive legislation limiting ‘coloured’ immigration. ⁶² The 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act came first. Protested by several anti-racist organisations, the Act was the first to restrict the ability for Commonwealth citizens to enter Britain. Its passing catalysed a spike in racial attacks, with the British West Indian Association reporting increased police brutality at the time. ⁶³ While the following years saw the new Labour government outlaw discrimination through the 1965 Race Relations Act, Labour similarly expressed a need to control Commonwealth immigration, ⁶⁴ continuing Conservative policy through the 1968 Commonwealth Immigration Act, later followed by the Conservative administration’s 1971 Immigration Act. Each of these Acts, while framed as ‘race-neutral’, effectively excluded only those with ‘Anglo-Saxon heredity’ from stricter immigration controls. ⁶⁵

The Universal Coloured People’s Association noted the continuous repressive laws designed to affect black people and limit ‘coloured’ immigration:

The facts reveal the British Government’s hypocritical and vile nature; when we look at the repressive laws which the British have passed specifically aimed at Black people, there could be no doubt of its criminal intentions . . . The laws prohibiting the entry of Kenyan Asians, although they are classified as citizens of the ‘united kingdom’ and hold British passports. Do you believe that the British Government would have treated white people in this way? Certainly not! ⁶⁶

Similarly, in a poster titled ‘Stop the Racist Immigration Bill’, the Black Panther Movement highlighted the racist intentions behind these successive Bills:

To make clear that the Bill is not meant to affect white people the government has declared that people who have a grandparent born in England (i.e. white racists from Rhodesia, Australia, South Africa, Canada etc.), are patriarchal and not subject to immigration control. ⁶⁷

While right-wing organisations were calling for ‘racial preservation’, anti-racist organising was on the rise and new ‘coloured’ immigration controls only strengthened liaisons between Asian and West Indian organisations. ⁶⁸ Anti-racist radicals began strategically organising against racism and police violence ⁶⁹ and by 1967, ‘Black Power’ was part of the British vocabulary. ⁷⁰

Having lost some of their colonial ‘enterprises’, the British state took Black Power as a serious threat, dedicating significant resources to surveilling black populations. ⁷¹ The ‘Black Power Desk’ – a unit run out of Scotland Yard − was set up in 1967 by Roy Jenkins, designed to infiltrate, collect and share intelligence on Black Power. ⁷² The state’s explicit aim was to ‘break radical black self-organisation in its entirety’ ⁷³ and the Race Relations Act – passed under the guise that it would protect Commonwealth immigrants from racism − was used to prosecute Roy Sawh of the Universal Coloured People’s Association and Black Power activist Michael de Freitas (Michael X) for inciting racial hatred. Black Power activists called this ‘legalised racism’, arguing that the Race Relations Act was a response to the ‘growing awareness of black people to exploitation, institutional racism and brutality’, designed to prevent black people from ‘taking effective organised action’. A Black Panther poster stated:

Under the Race Relations Act, several black people have been prosecuted and sent to prison for speaking up for the right of black people, while white fascists are allowed to refuse black people jobs and homes and insult and humiliate us, and are not prosecuted under this so-called Act. ⁷⁴

Like their US allies, British Black Power organisers were a threat to white dominance and the status quo. Of particular significance, Black Power groups were demanding criminal justice reform. While police brutality was a primary concern, activists also organised in response to black people being framed by the police, while protesting the absence of a ‘presumption of innocence’ for black defendants. The Black Unity and Freedom Party was calling for more black magistrates from the same social and cultural background as the majority of black defendants, arguing that black people ‘must be tried by their own peers’. ⁷⁵

Resembling 1890s Louisiana, fears of black domination and white disenfranchisement were rife. In the passing of the 1965 Race Relations Act, Conservatives feared that outlawing discrimination would make white people vulnerable to prosecution. Fears of ‘black criminality’ were perpetuated by news media, with black men depicted in the image of successive ‘folk-devils’, including the Black Power activist. ⁷⁶ Television became a ‘site of racial knowledge’, as authorities worried that the UK would follow the pattern of racial conflict in the US. ⁷⁷ Coverage of uprisings and black resistance was used to mobilise fear that this could be Britain’s future if Commonwealth immigration was not limited ⁷⁸ – a fear famously articulated through Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘rivers of blood’ speech. Throughout this period, Black Power was framed as ‘a philosophy of violence’. ⁷⁹

The period in which majority verdicts were introduced was therefore a time in which Britain had a strategic role in countering anti-racist resistance. Both Louisiana and England and Wales introduced majority verdicts when race, economic instability and white power were in huge contention, and where fears of Black Power and white disenfranchisement were apparent. Both occurred at a time when black people were seen as inferior, dangerous, yet necessary for labour. Indeed, majority verdicts were introduced when the ‘minority voice’ was seen to require silencing to maintain white power.

The departmental committee on jury service

Against this backdrop of ‘new racism’ and anti-racist resistance, the 1963 Morris Committee was launched to inquire into the conditions of jury service. Lord Morris was a Labour MP who served in the cabinet under three different prime ministers. Described as being on the centre-right of the Labour Party, ⁸⁰ Lord Morris was appointed to chair the committee by the Conservative administration, continuing in this role when the Labour Party returned to power in 1964.

At the time the committee was launched, juror eligibility depended on householder status. In the same way that immigration controls have historically excluded the poor, ⁸¹ juror eligibility was defined by wealth. Only householders residing in premises with a net annual value of at least thirty pounds in London and twenty pounds elsewhere qualified. This was in focus as an area of reform, with pressure exerted by women’s rights organisations who protested that the householder qualification unjustly excluded many women from jury service. However, renewed national property revaluations had recently brought more people into qualified householder status, increasing the number of potential jurors by 4.7 times in some areas and radically diversifying jury panels. The committee also considered equating the right to serve on a jury with the electoral register, which would further diversify the jury pool.

Written evidence to the Committee was submitted from many civil society organisations, trade unions, legal membership bodies, government departments and individuals, many of whom were concerned that an expanded juror pool, which included the ‘labouring classes’, immigrants and ‘coloureds’, would taint the ‘calibre’ of decision-making and educational aptitude necessary for jury duty. While some argued that the jury list should be modernised to reflect the electoral roll, others felt that the ‘labouring classes’ – which included many Commonwealth migrants – would negatively impact jury quality. Indeed, some contributors complained that property revaluations had already diminished the ‘calibre’ of jurors due to a perceived lower standard of education and intelligence amongst the ‘labouring classes’.

Written evidence of the Society of Town Clerks noted that in Newcastle up on Tyne, changes to the property requirement had ‘brought into the jury category almost every council house . . . includ[ing] a considerable proportion of the labouring classes who because of their lower standard of education, do not make the best type of juror’. ⁸² R. H. McCall, a town clerk and Morris Committee member, suggested that a certain standard of education therefore ought to be a ‘prerequisite for jury service’ to prevent the summoner from having to choose ‘between the sheep and the goats’. ⁸³

The Superintendents’ Association of the England and Wales Police Forces argued that the ‘increasing number of persons lacking in intelligence and reasonable standard of education, and even persons of bad character who incline to return perverse verdicts’, had led to the demise of ‘true verdicts’. ⁸⁴ Similarly, the Society of City and Borough Clerks of the Peace were concerned that expanding jury eligibility would include people from less ‘law-abiding’ districts and thus, more verdicts ‘in favour of the accused’. ⁸⁵

The influx of non-white migrants from the Commonwealth was overtly addressed at the Committee, and concerns about class and intelligence were not demarcated from discussions around race and immigration status. Negatively racialising discourse around lack of English fluency and poor intelligence was persistent throughout submissions of evidence, with women also the target of assumed intellectual incapability. High Court Judge Mr Justice Thesiger contended: ‘I do not think a juror on rape or robbery need be able to read . . . But on the long fraud cases a young housewife or some West Indian bus conductor may be wasting their time.’ ⁸⁶

The Coroners’ Society of England and Wales provided a troubling anecdote: ‘I have had the occasional coloured person on the jury . . . I have no objection to them merely because of their colour. However, the difficulty lies in their standard of intelligence and education.’ ⁸⁷

The increase in ‘coloured’ jurors was also a concern for members of the judiciary. Mr Justice Veale, although not officially involved in the Committee, was concerned enough to send a letter to Lord Morris sharing his experience of a ‘coloured’ juror who he claimed could not read the oath from the card. Justice Veale was concerned that his ‘disturbing’ experience ‘might well become more common in the future’. ⁸⁸

Resistance to ‘coloured’ jurors was also articulated under the guise of concerns about a lack of familiarity with ‘the English way of life’ and culture, reflecting a fear that white, English defendants would be misunderstood. Many contributors thus argued that a prospective juror should have fulfilled a minimum period of residency before becoming eligible. ⁸⁹ This proposal was often framed through ‘race-neutral’ and ‘sympathetic’ language, with a statement in the final Committee report contending that ‘it would be unfair to a very recent immigrant to make him serve on a jury before he has settled down in this country’.

Likewise, the National Association of Probation Officers contended that the proposal was not ‘intended to erect a barrier against non-British residents’ while stating that it ‘would mean that those who may have acquired little or no knowledge of the language and customs of this country would not be called on to serve’. They argued that ‘trial by jury should ensure trial by those who have knowledge of the life and culture of the country’, proposing a five-year residency requirement. ⁹⁰ Women’s equality organisation, the Six Point Group, similarly argued:

People whose basic experiences and usual way of life are different from our own to such an extent that they would be incapable of comprehending the significance of questions at issue. Many worthy and responsible Commonwealth citizens have vastly different cultural backgrounds. This does not indicate discrimination but our laws and social customs do not always coincide with theirs in the matter of human relations. ⁹¹

Others took an even harder line. Ignorant of the fact that many West Indian and South Asian Commonwealth migrants spoke English as a result of Britain’s colonial rule, the Superintendents’ Association of the Police Forces of England and Wales argued that ‘every member of a jury should not only be a British subject but should have been born in this country’ to ensure ‘a reasonable understanding of the language and . . . an appreciation of the customs and habits of the people’. ⁹²

Fears of white, middle-class disenfranchisement through the diversification of juries were therefore clear. Yet during these discussions, few organisations submitted data on the number of serving Commonwealth jurors, relying on anecdotal evidence and expressing generalised fears. No attempt was made to identify what proportion of defendants were newly arrived Commonwealth or Irish citizens ⁹³ and how they might be judged by a homogenously white, English middle-class jury. The Morris Committee proactively sought input from a variety of organising groups, yet there were no submissions from organisations advocating for racial equality or representing Commonwealth migrants’ interests. Despite this, the Committee recommended a five-year residency requirement. One justification for this, detailed in the report, was that:

Until they have become familiar with and assimilated to the English way of life, immigrants would be bad jurors. An immigrant may experience more than the ordinary amount of difficulty in deciding whether an English witness is lying, or in considering whether certain conduct conforms to a particular standard. ⁹⁴

Thus, akin to the characterisation of black jurors in 1890s Louisiana, the Committee framed Commonwealth migrants as unable to discern the truth, under the guise of ‘race-neutral’ discourse which expressed concern for their purported intellectual weakness, low educational standard and lack of familiarity with English language and customs. This exposition reveals the various gatekeepers of assumptions regarding who is deserving of justice and who is capable of enacting it. Paradoxically portraying itself as ‘civilised’ under the guise of a so-called ‘civilising mission’, the British Empire was reluctant to include its subjects on its juries, adjudging them as less worthy of participating in this civic duty.

While successive legislation fortified Britain’s external border, borders were also created within, demarcating citizens born to the nation and those allowed to settle on the premise of their subjugation. The assertion made by the Morris Committee is unequivocal: Commonwealth migrants must, before being allowed to exercise this civic duty, ‘prove their worth’ ⁹⁵ and ‘membership of the state does not equate to membership in the community of value’. ⁹⁶ This language of ‘us’ and ‘them’ reflects political discourse during the campaign to introduce majority verdicts in Oregon, whereby it was argued that corrupt jurors and ‘untrained immigrants’ were causing disagreements, costly to the American taxpayer. ⁹⁷ This analysis intersects significantly with prominent cultural studies of the post-war period, most notably Paul Gilroy’s There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack ⁹⁸ and Stuart Hall et al.’s Policing the Crisis. ⁹⁹ These works demonstrate how Britain’s interactions with its colonies influenced ideology and discourse about race and culture, and how politics, law and police power operate as conduits through which racially exclusive notions of identity and belonging are reproduced. The Morris Committee similarly serves as an illustration of how discourse accompanying black settlement in Britain is intertwined with law, belonging and identity.

Impact on unanimity

While not in the Terms of Reference, the Morris Committee appears to be the first time an inquiry on juries raised the possibility of revisiting unanimous verdicts in criminal trials. Some commentators were concerned that greater juror diversity would make achieving unanimity more difficult. Lord Devlin, a High Court Justice, who described juries at the time as ‘predominantly male, middle-aged, middle-minded, and middle-class’, captures the concern in his 1956 book, Trial by Jury, cited during the Committee:

It might seem surprising that in a country which has had universal suffrage for longer than a generation the jury should still rest upon a comparatively narrow base. Looked at from that angle, the argument for a change seems very strong. But it might be dangerous so long as the unanimity rule is retained, to equate the jury franchise with the right to vote . . . The approach to unanimity is helped to some extent by a system which draws its juries from a central bloc of the population, and it is difficult to estimate what the effect might be on the inclusion of more diversified elements. If unanimity is insisted upon and the narrow franchise is preferred, it is no doubt right that juries should be taken out of the middle of the community where safe judgement is more likely to repose. ¹⁰⁰

Homogenously white, male, middle-class juries were therefore viewed by some commentators as necessary for unanimity and ensuring ‘safe judgement’. However, the Morris Committee accepted that ‘trial by one’s peers’ required a representative cross-section of the community and recommended that the jury pool should reflect the electoral register, with no property qualifications. The Committee acknowledged that its recommendations would make ‘eligible for jury service large numbers of people’ who were not yet eligible. ¹⁰¹ Nevertheless, the Committee warned that the requirement of unanimity ‘highlights the importance of those of our recommendations which are designed to exclude from juries . . . ill-disposed or incompetent persons’ who might ‘improperly’ cause a disagreement. ¹⁰² Here, it is made clear that the success of the unanimity principle was contingent upon the ability to exclude ‘incompetent’ persons – described throughout the Committee as the ‘labouring classes’ and Commonwealth immigrants – from jury service.

The Committee supported the argument that eligible jurors should be able to read, write, speak and understand English without difficulty, and the minimum residency requirement was later introduced in the 1974 Juries Act. The Committee also recommended that people who had been in custodial detention within the previous five years ¹⁰³ be disqualified from jury service – a recommendation introduced alongside majority verdicts in the 1967 Criminal Justice Bill.

Jenkins’s majority verdicts proposal: debating the Criminal Justice Bill of 1967

The 1967 Criminal Justice Bill proposed several changes related to the proceedings of criminal courts, including majority verdicts and juror qualification, directly linking it to the Morris Committee recommendations. The Labour Party was in government during this period, led by Harold Wilson from 1964 to 1970. Frank Soskice was home secretary until December 1965 when he was succeeded by Roy Jenkins. Jenkins served until November 1967, which was recognised as the year of his ‘major reforms’. ¹⁰⁴

Jenkins is credited with being a progressive figure, known for outlawing discrimination and promoting positive ‘race relations’, ¹⁰⁵ encouraging integration rather than assimilation. Nonetheless, he advocated for a ‘civilised’ approach to immigration, contending that Britain ‘must contain the flow of immigrants’ within its ‘economic and social capacity to absorb them’. ¹⁰⁶ While seemingly determined to combat the discrimination experienced by Commonwealth migrants, he was also keen to avoid the pattern of ‘racial violence’ in the US, which he described as a ‘far more violent and difficult situation’. ¹⁰⁷ Considering this, Jenkins was responsible for banning US Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael from Britain in 1967 on the grounds that his presence was ‘not conducive to the public good’, ¹⁰⁸ and his establishment of the ‘Black Power Desk’ makes Jenkins directly responsible for the systematic surveillance and infiltration of Black Power organising. Likewise, Jenkins oversaw the use of his own Race Relations Act to prosecute anti-racist activists.

Jenkins was the most significant figure in promoting majority verdicts, which he successfully implemented in 1967 following more than a year of debate. In July 1965 Jenkins’s predecessor Frank Soskice received a memorandum from Judge Mervyn Griffith-Jones, setting out a case for majority verdicts on the basis that juror disagreements were resulting in substantial costs. Soskice acknowledged the financial costs of juror disagreements but in November 1965, Soskice, with the Lord Chancellor and Solicitor General, agreed that these costs were a necessary expense and part of the unavoidable cost of justice, concluding that majority verdicts would introduce an element of doubt. For Soskice, ‘more important than the occasional waste of time and money’ was ‘the need to eliminate as far as possible . . . the risk of the conviction of an innocent man’. ¹⁰⁹ Despite his predecessor’s decision, Roy Jenkins began pitching for majority verdicts following his appointment as home secretary in December 1965.

Mirroring the allegations of juror corruption made by advocates for majority verdicts in Oregon, Jenkins’s primary justification for majority verdicts in England and Wales was to prevent ‘nobbling’ − attempts to bribe and intimidate jurors into acquittal. He claimed that there was a ‘growing number of cases, involving serious crimes in which there have been attempts to bribe or intimidate jurors’. ¹¹⁰ Reflecting the concerns set out in the Morris Committee, Arthur Davidson, minister in the Attorney General’s Department, argued that an increase in ‘nobbling’ coincided with the emergence of highly organised criminal groups which threatened the traditional ‘British way of life’ − a sentiment steeped in language of national identity and belonging:

the jury system is part of our heritage and of what we are proud to call the British way of life . . . but it is equally true that part of the contemporary British life is the emergence of the highly organised criminal syndicate . . . that is why the problem is particularly relevant at this moment. ¹¹¹

In ongoing consultation with Jenkins, Scotland Yard also shared concerns about corruption attempts. In a report prepared by the Deputy Commander of New Scotland Yard, the Metropolitan police (the Met) detailed the ‘unprecedented precautions and security arrangements’ that had been maintained following the arrest of members of the high-profile ‘Richardson gang’ ‘to secure a just outcome’. In a letter to the Home Office, Scotland Yard stressed that it was difficult to ‘look after’ twelve jurors during a prolonged trial, taking the services of seventy-two policemen for 24 hours. ¹¹² Attached to the report was a list of witnesses and one juror who had been approached in the ‘Richardson’ case. The report goes on to state:

Majority verdicts would go far towards the prevention of the degeneration of law and order . . . If gangs of the Richardson order are to be controlled and the Jury system is to continue in this country, there can be little doubt that majority verdicts must now be introduced. ¹¹³

Scotland Yard’s input emphasises the police perception of the jury as a potential obstacle to their conviction-oriented objectives. During the Morris Committee, the Met expressed concern that ‘there had been a marked deterioration in the quality of jurors’. ¹¹⁴ The Association of Chief Police Officers felt that only ‘urban’ juries had deteriorated, perceived to be reflective of the ‘tendency of the professional classes to move their homes out of the cities’, ¹¹⁵ which coincided with the settlement of Commonwealth migrants in inner cities.

Considering the state of policing in this period, the home secretary’s consultation with Scotland Yard should not be downplayed. Prior to 1967, several scandals involving police corruption were brought to public attention. The period soon afterwards saw the uncovering of ‘systematic, institutionalised and widespread’ corruption ¹¹⁶ − obstruction, leaks, ‘disappearing’ documents, and planting of false evidence within the Met. This continued into the 1970s, manifesting as a series of police-driven ‘fit ups’ during the racially charged ‘mugging crisis’. These cases have been referred to the Court of Appeal in recent years, a notable example being the Oval Four case involving Winston Trew, a prominent Black Power activist, wrongfully convicted by a 10–2 majority verdict in 1972. ¹¹⁷

Majority verdicts, which introduce an element of doubt in convictions, were therefore introduced on consultation with Scotland Yard and without a comprehensive inquiry, despite an inability to trust the veracity of the institution who ‘prepare the ground for building a case’. ¹¹⁸ This period was marked by a paradox of publicised evidence of widespread police malpractice, and police lobbying for greater powers to aid in the so-called ‘war against crime’. ¹¹⁹ Although majority verdicts do not constitute a police power, the police perceived them to be a necessary adjustment which aligned with their overarching objectives.

Yet there was little evidence that ‘nobbling’ was widespread − a finding reinforced by the home secretary’s continued correspondence with the police. Between December 1966 and January 1967, letters were exchanged between Home Office staff and Scotland Yard. Acknowledging that parliamentary resistance to majority verdicts came from a deficit of evidence of ‘nobbling’, Jenkins requested a report explaining why so few cases of ‘embracery’ (the official charge for ‘nobbling’) had been brought. ¹²⁰ In response, Scotland Yard reminded the Home Office of one ongoing case where two people had been charged with embracery. ¹²¹ In August 1966, Jenkins also made enquiries of the police throughout the country as to the extent of ‘nobbling’, sending dozens of letters, with most eliciting a response similar to Oxfordshire Constabulary’s: ‘No attempts or suspected attempts to corrupt or bribe jurymen have come to the notice of Police in Oxfordshire.’ ¹²²

In a later House of Commons debate in April 1967, the home secretary was challenged for failing to provide sufficient evidence of ‘nobbling’. Mr William Deedes, Conservative MP, argued that Jenkins was making a ‘serious decision with undue haste on insufficient grounds’. He went on to say:

Against comparable changes which have been made in our law in recent years . . . this has undoubtedly been the least considered and the most hastily reached . . . We have reached this point with no considered document . . . no evidence at all outside the three speeches . . . delivered by the home secretary. ¹²³

At the end of the debate, Sir John Hobson, Conservative MP, noted that the ‘vast weight of opinion’ was ‘against the Home Secretary’s proposal’. ¹²⁴ Despite this wealth of criticism, Jenkins requested immediate legislation, with no official inquiry into ‘nobbling’ or majority verdicts.

Several other justifications for majority verdicts were apparent in the debates. Jenkins, alongside some ministers and members of the judiciary, was concerned that juror disagreements were leading to excess costs that majority verdicts could mitigate. Attempts were made to collate data on the scale of hung juries to substantiate this claim, with a handwritten table indicating 126 disagreements in the Central Criminal Court between January 1959 and June 1965. ¹²⁵ While this justification was better received, many commentators and MPs were similarly unconvinced that the prevalence of disagreements warranted majority verdicts. Legal scholar Michael Zander, commentating for the Guardian in 1966 wrote,

The statistics show that the number of jury disagreements is insignificant . . . no higher than what was to be expected in any system requiring unanimity. Moreover, retrials after jury disagreements not infrequently result in acquittals. ¹²⁶

Jenkins was also determined to increase conviction rates, arguing that majority verdicts would reduce the number of ‘questionable’ acquittals. At the July 1966 Home Affairs Committee, he argued that too many guilty people were walking free, contending that cases are ‘so carefully sifted’ by the police and prosecution ‘that almost the only ones coming before the jury are those in which there is a considerable body of evidence of guilt’. ¹²⁷ Concerns about incorrect acquittals were also shared during the Morris Committee. Justice Thesiger, who earlier contended that ‘housewives’ and West Indian bus drivers would not make suitable jurors in fraud cases, argued that the most ‘dangerous criminals’ were often difficult to convict, advocating for majority verdicts at the discretion of judges. While Justice Thesiger was particularly concerned with cases involving child murder, he was also concerned with ensuring successful prosecutions for what he described as ‘gangs’ or ‘racial fights’ − phenomena which consumed political and media discourse at the time, often attributed to ‘coloured’ migration: ‘There are other difficult cases in modern times involving gangs or different races where crime, very dangerous to the public peace, has clearly been committed, but evidence as to guilt is difficult to obtain and present to juries. Race or racial fights . . . come to mind.’ ¹²⁸

Despite recent police corruption revelations, Jenkins endorsed a crime control agenda, using language which embodied a presumption of guilt and side-lined due process. While acknowledging that majority verdicts were a ‘tough on crime’ initiative, Jenkins argued that the proposal complemented the ‘liberal’ measures in the Criminal Justice Bill, which included early release on licence. Yet MPs and commentators pushed back again, citing a paucity of evidence of excessive or wrongful acquittals. Commentating for The Times in 1966, Basil Wigoder QC wrote:

The jury system is under attack on evidence that amounts to little more than guesswork . . . Home Office criminal statistics are silent as to the actual operation of the jury system, but . . . there is growing up a general feeling that too many defendants are being acquitted, and that a change to majority verdicts will arrest this tendency . . . ¹²⁹

Noting that half of retrials caused by disagreements resulted in acquittals at the Old Bailey, Sir George Goldstream argued that allowing majority verdicts in these cases could ‘have resulted in the conviction of an appreciable number of persons who were later acquitted on the unanimous [verdict] of another jury’. ¹³⁰ It was therefore argued that majority verdicts would weaken safeguards against wrongful conviction. Nonetheless, Jenkins contended that his proposed Criminal Appeal Bill, enacted in 1968, would expand defendants’ appeal rights and safeguard against wrongful conviction, validating the implementation of majority verdicts. Yet, rectifying wrongful convictions remains an exceedingly arduous task. ¹³¹

Jenkins’s final justification for majority verdicts was the ‘crank juror’. Reflecting discourse from the Morris Committee around the aptitude of migrant and working-class jurors, the ‘crank’ juror was described as a recalcitrant, stupid and dishonest person of poor education, who may not properly consider the evidence and who is willing to acquit based on their personal disdain of law enforcement and sympathy for defendants. In his memorandum, Judge Griffith Jones contended that majority verdicts would exclude ‘cranks’ with no risk of injustice:

With the existing pressure on our criminal courts, the waste of public time and money which is caused by the odd crank or dishonest juror cannot be justified . . . and. . . with juries of the education and standard which we now get, so long as a substantial majority is insisted on, there can be no risk of injustice being done by accepting a majority verdict. ¹³²

Jenkins and the Lord Chancellor agreed that the ‘crank juror’ was responsible for incorrect acquittals, with Jenkins suggesting that ‘because of a general dislike of the police or some similar prejudice’, a ‘crank’ may simply not convict under any circumstance. ¹³³ Once again, Jenkins faced resistance, with MPs arguing that diversity and disagreement are democratic, allowing for thorough deliberation and assurance that jurors are performing their duties conscientiously.

Majority verdicts as a ‘solution’ to juror diversity

In a House of Commons debate on 26 April 1967, several MPs who repudiated Jenkins’s ‘nobbling’ claims, proposed their own reasons for supporting the majority verdict proposal. Conservative MP Charles Fletcher Cooke argued that Jenkins’s justification of ‘nobbling’ had ‘not been sufficiently sustained’, stating that his reasons for supporting majority verdicts were ‘rather deeper’. ¹³⁴ He contended that majority verdicts were a necessary response to the expansion of juror eligibility and the demise of juror homogeneity with respect to gender, race and class. Adopting a position of supposed ‘neutrality’, he argued that there was ‘no logical defence’ for the homogenous jury pool, but that majority verdicts were an inevitable response to juror diversity. He echoed the concerns raised throughout the Morris Committee, expressing apprehension about the prospect of English ‘noblemen’ being judged by ‘common clay’ rather than a ‘jury of their peers’, unconcerned about how other defendants might be judged by a homogenously white, middle-class jury:

One is enormously widening the approach of new jury men . . . not only in matters of class, but also in matters of race. In the past . . . the need to be tried by one’s peers was always recognised in our jury system. One had to be tried by people who thought alike, and when there was a rare bird, like a nobleman, he would not be tried by common clay. He was to be tried by his fellow noblemen, who understood the way that his mind worked, and what his ideals were . . . once one gets away from this middle class, middle brain jury, one will not get, in practice, the degree of unanimity, common thought, common philosophy and common direction with all its faults, and there were many, but with its enormous virtues, which were perhaps greater. Because we must recognise the march of time and realise that if this enormous extension of the jury qualification is imposed the jury will no longer be anything like what it has been in its 600 years’ history, sadly and regrettably we have to desert the unanimity principle. ¹³⁵

For Fletcher Cooke, unanimity depended on homogeneity. Diversity of thought represented a barrier to consensus, making majority verdicts necessary for agreement, in effect, by excluding minority voices. This was supported by Mr Miscampbell, Conservative MP, who, similarly unconvinced by claims of ‘nobbling’, agreed that unanimity and juror diversity were incompatible:

one possible reason for a change to the majority verdicts . . . in two – or three – years’ time, we may change the qualification for jury service so that they correspond exactly with the electoral roll . . . we may turn to a situation where everyone . . . good, bad or indifferent, is a possible juror. ¹³⁶

Fletcher Cooke considered whether it would be appropriate to delay majority verdicts until the new juror eligibility criteria had taken effect. At the same time, he explicitly disclosed that he would vote in favour of majority verdicts because of the diversification of juries, which he argued would lead to more incorrect acquittals. For him, the ‘modern jury’ nullified the ‘privilege’ of unanimity:

I am convinced that the situation is radically changed by the proposals made for widening jury qualification. For that reason alone, I am disposed to support the Home Secretary. My only misgiving is whether it would not have been better to wait and see whether what I fear will happen does happen; whether it would not have been better to have postponed implementing this proposal for some time; whether it would not have been better to see perhaps a great number of people acquitted who should be convicted, which I am sure is what would happen if we preserved the unanimity rule plus the immense broadening of the qualification. Perhaps we should suffer a bit before we change it. On the whole, I think not. I am disposed to believe that, with the modern jury as we are to see it in future we can no longer afford − I will not say the luxury − the privilege of unanimity. ¹³⁷

Mr Doughty, Conservative MP for East Surrey, also voted in favour of majority verdicts on this basis, stating that he agreed with his ‘hon. and learned Friend [Mr Fletcher Cooke MP]’. ¹³⁸

The arguments posed in this debate are alarmingly similar to those put forth in Oregon, whereby it was contended that ‘vast immigration into America . . . of people untrained in the jury system’ had made ‘the jury of twelve increasingly unwieldly’. ¹³⁹ The unanimity principle was never tested alongside the expansion of juror qualification in England and Wales, so we do not know whether greater heterogeneity would have made unanimity more difficult to achieve. The existing literature from the US suggests that while this assumption could be correct, it is a positive outcome which makes deliberations more thorough, safeguards against wrongful conviction and ensures that the voices of minority groups are not side-lined. While Jenkins’s justifications for majority verdicts reveal only abstruse subtexts of race and class, some MPs overtly supported his proposal not on the basis of ‘nobbling’, but because of the diversification of juries with regard to race and class.

Conclusion

Majority verdicts in England and Wales have gone without scrutiny until now. This practice, which results in more than 1,000 convictions annually, was introduced in 1967 on Roy Jenkins’s justification that it would prevent ‘nobbling’. This paper provides a ‘counter-story’ to why we abruptly abolished the centuries-old principle of unanimity. Our findings demonstrate that ‘nobbling’, and other race and class-neutral justifications such as the expense of retrials, were not widespread issues in the operation of criminal justice at the time. Our analysis reveals a sense of desperation in Jenkins’s endeavours to find sufficient evidence for his claims, uncovering a more nuanced and troubling subtext behind Jenkins’s flimsy pretext.

The Morris Committee, the broader context of the socio-political climate and anti-racist resistance in 1960s Britain add another layer to this counter-story. Majority verdicts were introduced against a backdrop of anti-racist organising, where criminal justice issues were at the forefront of demands. This was accompanied by a fear of white disenfranchisement and black domination, which manifested in successive racist Immigration Bills and the strategic repression of Black Power – part facilitated by Jenkins himself. The Morris Committee illustrates these public anxieties in the context of the jury, as this ‘institution of democracy’ was seen to be under threat from the influx of ‘coloured’ migrants and a growing and newly franchised ‘labouring class’.

The Morris Committee provides the first direct link between wider anxieties around the diversifying British population and majority verdicts, as some commentators saw juror heterogeneity as incompatible with unanimity. The April 1967 parliamentary debate solidifies this link, as MPs explicitly disclosed that they would vote for majority verdicts based on fears about what would happen to case outcomes if the voices of jurors outside the middle class and ‘middle brained’ could not be side-lined. In telling the counter-story then, we foreground how race and class underpinned the enactment of a seemingly neutral law.

For decades, ‘nobbling’ has been accepted as the justification behind majority verdicts in England and Wales. Our counter-story ‘raises a differing perspective’, ¹⁴⁰ encouraging us to question the existence of a law that was seemingly ‘written out of sheer concern for public protection’. ¹⁴¹ Similar to the research behind the constitutional amendment in Louisiana, the wider commentary on juries from the Morris Committee and the broader socio-political context have assisted us in demonstrating that the decision to introduce majority verdicts in England and Wales is not demarcated from racist and classist ideology and intentions. While this study is not intended to be a comparative analysis, parallels between the decision to do away with unanimity in Louisiana and England and Wales are troubling.

The sheer number of criminal convictions reached by majority verdict in England and Wales, coupled with the US empirical research demonstrating that unanimity can safeguard against wrongful conviction and avoid side-lining minority viewpoints, should encourage us to reflect on the appropriateness of this mechanism for jury decision-making that has life-altering effects on defendants and victims. When we add to this the under-evidenced impetus for the introduction of a law that abolished a centuries-old legal protection, and the racism and classism in the debate, the need for further scrutiny becomes urgent. The US example provides a clarion call to be vigilant to the potential effects of racism and classism in the operation of juries. We hope this study is a first step towards better data gathering and analysis on majority verdicts in England and Wales, and further critical enquiry into the relationship between Britain’s colonial history and the jury system.