http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/call-to-scrap-jury-trials-for-lesser-offences-2123791.html
Heads up UK!
Sounds good on the surface saving money and all, but what else falls within the parameters of that lesser category?
Public nuisance (open to the interpretation of the individual)
Resisting arrest (open to the interpretation of the individual)
When just going before a Magistrate on either of the above can get you a year in prison, means one person welds an enormous amount of power, which opens it up automatically to corruption.
Don't allow them to take away your civil rights to a trail by jury.
If a man can be sentenced to a year in prison, he has the right to be heard by a jury of his peers.
Scrapping the right to a jury trial for lesser offences that "clog up the courts" could save £30 million a year in prosecutors' costs alone, the Government's victims' commissioner said today
"If just half of the 'either way' cases which currently end up in the crown court could be kept in the magistrates' courts, we could be saving £30 million a year in CPS case preparation costs alone," she said.
"We should not view the right to a jury trial as being so sacrosanct that its exercise should be at the cost of victims of serious crimes.
"Defendants should not have the right to choose to be tried by a jury over something such as the theft of a bicycle or stealing from a parking meter."
"This is not justice."
Ms Casey also backed calls for magistrates' sentencing powers to be increased to one year so they can avoid referring more cases to the crown court.
