Ruth Money: Chief Victims Advisor on whether juries need to be scrapped from sexual violence trials

The Chief Victims Advisor says scrapping juries from sexual violence trials could result in more fact-based verdicts. 

Ruth Money believes it would be better for survivors - in part because judges must give reasoning for their verdict.

The idea's received some pushback, with one legal expert arguing jury trials are a foundation of the justice system. 

Money says jurors enter a court with bias, and mightn't understand nuances of sexual assault. 

"I've had survivors say to me - look, I was slammed around that courtroom like a tennis ball, I was rape-mythed, I was shamed, I was blamed."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now on jury trials, there is a call for us
to end jury trials for cases of sexual violence. One
of the voices leading this is the government's chief victim's advisor,
Ruth Money.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hey, Ruth, good afternoon.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Why do you want to get rid of them?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Well? I think we can do better. I think we
can have a safer, more accurate kind of fact finding.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Yeah, process, Is that what the problem is? Fact finding?
Because isn't that that's not really the jury's job and
doesn't even really involve the jury, does it that kind
of thing happens before a trial?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Well, I think no, I think the jury and judge,
depending on whether it's judge alone or jury, but we'll
get to that. I am sure their job is to
consider the evidence, but when you come into that room
with bias, with new kind of not understanding nuances of
sexual assaults, victim blaming, you can end up with a

(01:02):
skew on the evidence, and therefore you don't find the facts.
There have been some really perverse outcomes with jury based
trials in this space, and I am asking the government
to look at an alternative that is safer for everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Give me an example of a perverse outcome.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Well, I think the problem with a lot of the
jury decisions is that you don't get a reason for
the decision. So what I am trying to undo, I
guess is the ability to understand was the decision based
in fact, and therefore an appeal would or wouldn't proceed

(01:44):
because at the moment, a jury will just say you're
guilty or you're not guilty. Now, if they're not guilty,
the victim doesn't understand why not there are no reasons,
whereas the Law Commission and other jurisdictions have said what
we could do and what we do do in other
jurisdictions is there are reasons given for a judge and

(02:07):
expert panel's decision which can then be appealed or not
whether they have actually considered the law and the evidence appropriately.
Whereas at the moment we don't have that, We have
no way to unpack what the reason for the decision was.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Do you think it's not obvious? I mean, I've sat
through so many of these kinds of court cases as
a reporter, and it has been often quite obvious why
the jury has reached the conclusion they have.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeap, sometimes it is really obvious and other times it's
absolutely not obvious at all, you know, and you end
up with people, you know. I've had survivors saying to me, look,
I was slammed around that courtroom like a tennis ball.
I was rapemisted, I was shamed, I was blamed, and

(02:57):
then we still get a guilty We still get a
guilty verdict. But what we are trying to do is
make this process safer for both victims and defendants so
that the system is more we just have more confidence
around interpersonal crimes within the justice system.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Do you accept the argument that a jury is necessary
because a jury is a reflection of the moral position
of society at the time.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
I do accept that that is a accurate position of
a jury, but I also challenge that at the moment,
juries are not juries of your peers. And it is
becoming you know, I go into court and have spent
years into court every week and I watch what's happening
with our jury pool in New Zealand, and people do

(03:50):
whatever they can to get out of sitting on a jury,
and all of a sudden, we don't have a jury
of our peers, we don't have a true refer reflection
of society sitting on many of our juries now and
then when you combine that with people's biases when it
comes to victim blaming, when it comes to coercive control,

(04:14):
and the fact that you really do need to be
an expert a lot of the time to understand those nuances.
I fear that there are wrong decisions being made within
these interpersonal trials.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Ruth, thank you very much. I really appreciate time. Ruth Money,
Government Chief Victim's Advisor. For more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news talks they'd be from four pm weekdays,
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