Just as a cash-strapped administration looks for ways of streamlining justice by curbing jury trials, by a nice coincidence academic researchers have come up with the idea of holding jury hearings remotely over the internet. According to a study just released by academics from Exeter, El Paso and Cornell, volunteer mock jurors from New York State seem to have maintained roughly similar levels of concentration and enagagement whether deliberating remotely or in person.

The current difficulty with jury trials is not so much inefficiency as the unsuitability of many of the cases subject to them

You can hear the suggestions already: might this let the Government solve the jury conundrum without tinkering with the immemorial right of the citizen to be tried by his peers? Might it even get extra credit for empowering those happier online than offline and getting the law to embrace cutting-edge technology? Up to a point, Lord Copper. There are rather more difficulties than meet the eye about this proposal, despite its futuristic appeal.

For one thing, the parallel isn’t that close. The study involved a fictitious civil case concerning personal injury, not a criminal one involving the........

© The Spectator