Worth Richard: Criminal Procedure Bill — In Committee 
Worth Richard: Criminal Procedure Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:647;Page:16605] 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National) 
: 
 Kate Wilkinson has skilfully sketched out the changes in Part 4. I just want to focus on one particular aspect because it is a huge change in the criminal law. That is the entitlement to be judged by a jury of one’s peers and that all 12 of them must reach a unanimous verdict. This bill proposes a major change in that regard. The present law in New Zealand is that in all criminal cases the verdict of the jury must be unanimous. Now we are to contemplate this change to majority verdicts in criminal cases. The proportion we have chosen is 11:1. So to convict 11 jurors must say “guilty” but one may stand out. 
It is interesting to look at other jurisdictions to see what they have done. There is no doubt about it: there has been an increasing trend towards majority verdicts. I will pick a few illustrations. In the United Kingdom the proportion is 10:2 in the Northern Territory it is 10:2 in Tasmania it is 10:2 in South Australia it is 10:2 in Victoria it is 11:1 in Oregon it is 10:2 in Hawaii it is 10:2 and in Alaska it is 10:2. 
These majority verdict changes are just part of a raft of changes in this legislation. There are also changes relating to the very existence of juries in complicated cases and cases where juror intimidation might be an issue. I thought it was interesting that the Law and Order Committee heard some arguments to the effect that there was no evidence of rogue juror problems in New Zealand. The Law Commission took a quite contrary view in that regard and said that there was. It is difficult to identify the incidence of rogue jurors in New Zealand because in terms of the Juries Act what goes on in the jury room is not to be disclosed. But certainly my experience as a lawyer before entering this House was that rogue jury outcomes were not at all uncommon. 
I tell the Committee of one such illustration which I think is typical. An accused person faced charges of being a drug mule. This person had brought substantial quantities of cocaine into New Zealand for a dealer and was apprehended by the Customs Service and charged. My informant sat on that particular jury. That informant told me—and there was a hung jury in this case—that several of the jurors were not prepared to convict the accused person because the accused person had not admitted to the offence. Because there had not been an admission to the police the jurors were prepared and determined to stay out of a deliberation of “guilty”. It just shows what can go on in the closed confines of a jury room. 
I think it is interesting too that the Law Commission has apparently “found that in a study of 48 jury trials five were hung two of which involved rogue jurors refusing to participate in deliberations and three with rational dissenting jurors.” Members of the Committee may know that the reality of jury selection with rights of challenge is that defence lawyers seek to construct a jury of malleable and simple folk. That is a reality of the jury selection process. The reality is also that a number of jurors have had brushes of one sort or another with the police and often quite clearly have no sympathy for the police or Crown view of events—for the prosecution view of events. So I do not doubt for a moment that there is real merit in this plan to have majority verdicts as we stay with the jury system—a system that both English common law and the United States constitution recognise as a fundamental civil right.