61 mistrials last year

There were 61 mistrials last year, but no records are kept of how many of those went to a new hearing.

Mistrials are when the judge believes the integrity of the jury trial process has been compromised, which can be for a range of reasons such as too many jurors falling ill.

Documents released to Radio Live under the Official Information Act and provided to NZPA showed there were 56 District Court mistrials last year, up from 47 in 2008, and five at the High Court (seven in 2009).

However, the Justice Ministry could not say why the trials were aborted or the cost that incurred, whether they were re-held, the number of jurors excused mid-trial or how many trials went ahead with fewer than 12 jurors because the data was not collected.

Justice Minister Simon Power said any mistrial was regrettable but the number was low at 4 per cent of all District Court trials last year.

"However, it is an area where we can improve and the Criminal Procedure Simplification Project (due to be introduced to Parliament later this year) is addressing how we can reduce the number of mistrials," he said.

"Any additional cost and inconvenience of a mistrial is outweighed by the importance of the right to a fair trial."

Mr Power said the ministry did not keep a tally of the reasons and costs of mistrials because it did not have automatic access to court records and would need to apply to search the individual court file. It was also too complex to quantify the cost of a mistrial because of the number of different parties involved.

The Criminal Simplification Project considered the idea of starting with larger juries so that trials could continue, even if several people pulled out, but decided there were too many problems. These included coordination, conflict, motivation, lower levels of participation, administration, and higher costs associated with modifying jury boxes and jury rooms.

The move would also be out of step with most other jurisdictions.

The Government is considering a proposal to make it easier for trials to continue with 10 jurors - subject to a judge's existing powers to dismiss the whole jury if there's good reason.

Currently when two jurors are dismissed from a jury, "exceptional circumstances" must exist for the case to continue.

- NZPA