Sarah Harte: We need to change how juries operate to modernise the courts

Instead of juries in sexual assault cases, we should have specially trained judges

The standard line is that a jury fulfils an essential function in the legal system. File picture: iStock

MANY great films, including To Kill a Mockingbird, 12 Angry Men, and Runaway Jury, involve juries and courtroom dramas. However, if we are lucky, juries don’t usually feature in most of our lives.

Over the last year, several high-profile cases, both criminal and civil in nature, involved juries, including the high-profile Nikita Hand v Conor McGregor civil case, and the criminal trial of the barrister and Trinity College law lecturer Diarmuid Rossa Phelan, who last week was acquitted of murdering a man who trespassed on his land in February 2022.