JUSTICE Secretary Humza Yousaf has said he is open-minded about Scotland moving to have just two verdicts available to jurors in criminal trials.
Yousaf insisted that no option for jury reform was being ruled out after a major new study was published.
At the moment, juries in Scotland are asked to decide if someone is guilty or not guilty, or if the charges against them are not proven – with this controversial verdict resulting in the accused person being acquitted.
The research into the behaviour of juries in Scotland – which have 15 members instead of 12 south of the Border – found when a not proven verdict was available, juries tended to opt for this instead of not guilty to acquit an accused.
The study, which was the largest of its kind in the UK, also concluded that “individual jurors were significantly less likely to favour a guilty verdict when the not proven verdict was available”.
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The report was published after more than 860 Scots took part in 64 mock jury trials, featuring fictional but realistic rape or assault cases.
Of the 32 cases where a not proven verdict was available, 26 resulted in an acquittal – with 24 of these being with a not proven verdict.
“This suggests that, in finely balanced trials, juries have a preference for acquitting via not proven rather than not guilty,” the report said.
It went on to state that removing the not proven verdict “might lead to more jurors favouring a guilty verdict, which might, therefore, lead to more guilty verdicts over a larger number of trials”. However the report stressed “it was not possible to estimate the likely scale of any such impact”.
Yousaf said: “We will now engage in serious discussions on all of these findings including whether we should move to a two verdicts system. My mind is open and we will not pre-judge the outcome.”
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