sheriff.nsw.gov.au

I served as a juror for a rape case, and I feel the accused did not get a fair trial. What should I do? I'm from Australia, so I guess this is going out to all Australian solicitors or anyone who is knowledgeable with Australian law. I'll sum it up. I was on the jury for a case where this man raped this young woman. It was pretty straight forward. The defence was very weak and we were pretty set on what the final verdict would be after a few days of deliberation. However, there was a former police officer on the jury with us. I recalled from legal studies that anyone who has served as an officer was not allowed to sit on a jury, but that was a few years ago. Sure enough I looked up the [legislation](http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/viewtop/inforce/act+18+1977+FIRST+0+N/) and it states: >Jury Act 1977 No 18 (NSW) >Current version for 1 August 2010 to date (accessed 29 October 2011 at 19:28) >Schedule 2 Persons ineligible to serve as jurors >(Section 6 (b)) >10 A person who at any time has been a judicial officer (within the meaning of the Judicial Officers Act 1986) or a coroner, **police officer**, Crown Prosecutor, Public Defender, Director or Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions or Solicitor for Public Prosecutions. This is the most recent legislation available for my state, and it clearly recognises that anyone who has served as a police officer cannot serve as a juror. It's worth noting that the same legislation is also referred to on the NSW Sheriff's website, found [here](http://www.sheriff.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/local_courts/ll_localcourts.nsf/pages/SHO_jury_exemptions). I brought it up on the last day of deliberation to the sheriff, and he explained to me that the legislation I had read has been amended since then. Note that I served as a juror around July 2011, and this particular legislation has been around since August 2010. So he was clearly wrong, but probably did not want to bother with it since it was a pretty straight forward case. It states

I served as a juror for a rape case, and I feel the accused did not get a fair trial. What should I do? I'm from Australia, so I guess this is going out to all Australian solicitors or anyone who is knowledgeable with Australian law. I'll sum it up. I was on the jury for a case where this man raped this young woman. It was pretty straight forward. The defence was very weak and we were pretty set on what the final verdict would be after a few days of deliberation. However, there was a former police officer on the jury with us. I recalled from legal studies that anyone who has served as an officer was not allowed to sit on a jury, but that was a few years ago. Sure enough I looked up the [legislation](http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/viewtop/inforce/act+18+1977+FIRST+0+N/) and it states: >Jury Act 1977 No 18 (NSW) >Current version for 1 August 2010 to date (accessed 29 October 2011 at 19:28) >Schedule 2 Persons ineligible to serve as jurors >(Section 6 (b)) >10 A person who at any time has been a judicial officer (within the meaning of the Judicial Officers Act 1986) or a coroner, **police officer**, Crown Prosecutor, Public Defender, Director or Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions or Solicitor for Public Prosecutions. This is the most recent legislation available for my state, and it clearly recognises that anyone who has served as a police officer cannot serve as a juror. It's worth noting that the same legislation is also referred to on the NSW Sheriff's website, found [here](http://www.sheriff.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/local_courts/ll_localcourts.nsf/pages/SHO_jury_exemptions). I brought it up on the last day of deliberation to the sheriff, and he explained to me that the legislation I had read has been amended since then. Note that I served as a juror around July 2011, and this particular legislation has been around since August 2010. So he was clearly wrong, but probably did not want to bother with it since it was a pretty straight forward case. It states