Have you done Jury Duty before?

[Darth Rosenberg]

I've done duty duty too and was admittedly one of the quieter ones in the deliberation room. If you're a bit of an introvert and not naturally outspoken, it's hard to intervene into a full flowing conversation. In addition, I often found other jurors were saying things I agreed with anyway so rephrasing what they were already saying for the sake of participating more in the conversation felt pointless.

Hm, well one could make the case that staying quiet in such a situation is rather irresponsible, i.e. when it's this important a matter (peoples lives are at stake, and regardless of the decision it'll impact not only the individuals but their family members, friends, etc), being outspoken has no correlation with being objective or constructive - so if a few in a group of 12 are remaining quieter but have something valuable to contribute, and are reticent to do so, well, you see my point.

And even if others might be saying the same thing, every voice for and against an idea counts - more vocal agreement on one issue might sway others.

(I'm not criticising you personally, btw - I have no idea as to the details of the trials or of how your juries interacted)

Basically, your job is to help wherever the accused is lying or not- the key factor being that you've to be confident they're guilty *beyond reasonable doubt*.

Did you see a shift from day1/2 perceptions versus the second week/trial? I wonder how much 'better' a jury after it's got its feet under the desk is, so to speak. The distinction between proving guilt and proving innocence is important, but very early on it seemed that wasn't clear with some people. How does that affect how people process testimony and evidence, I wonder?

Frustratingly we had to reach a not-guilty verdict because the police had lost some crucial evidence that would have proved or disproved the defendant's alibi. It was one person's word against the other so we had to reach a not-guilty verdict even though we felt he was probably guilty. It was very frustrating but the right thing to do.

Yeah, that's what I mentioned about justice/court systems really having nothing to do with right or wrong - it's just a process of justice that has to go through the motions.

My first week/trial was also acquitted on every count, which never felt like the right outcome - but it certainly was the correct outcome based on the evidence and the process of justice.

Plus, ditto'd to your frustration at errors; in the first trial we spent our time looking at mountains of evidence for harassment, yet that was never something the prosecuting team went for (they went for tougher charges; battery and sexual assault). Well, until the verdict... after which the barrister leafed through some papers, searching for the paperwork to reduce it to a harassment charge - 'cept the judge and the clerk had no equivalent documentation, so the prosecution um'd and ah'd briefly before the trial came to a close.

We all felt bad for the woman at the centre of it, but if the evidence doesn't hold up and the CPS drop the ball, a jury can't do anything but acquit.

We found the defendant not-guilty because the the details the accusers told the court and in particular the timing of the events they alleged didn't collaborate with the evidence and testimony the police gave us.

Heh, our second trial had a defendant who changed his story three times - the last right there in the court room. There was evidence supporting the prosecution, so that was a quicker deliberation which found him guilty.

At the end of our service the judge - recognising and speaking to those from the previous week - half jokingly remarked that they do prosecute more than sexual assault cases, but we just got unlucky with two in a row. It sounds odd saying neither was particularly disturbing, but relatively speaking they weren't. Both gave an uncomfortable insight into why sexual assault and rape prosecutions are so low - it can easily descend into he-said-she-said (which summed up our first week), and the incidents quite often occur with no witnesses, ergo corroborating accounts can be hard to come by.

But yeah, all in all I'd say people should look forward to being called - you're participating in a service for your community/society, and you gain an insight into all kinds of things you wouldn't have thought about before. You also end up rubbing shoulders with people from demographics you normally wouldn't, and having to have very frank exchanges with them - people who'd been complete strangers just a day or so before. I found that very interesting, as the circumstances are so different to anything else in life.

 

[Nickolai77]

Did you see a shift from day1/2 perceptions versus the second week/trial? I wonder how much 'better' a jury after it's got its feet under the desk is, so to speak. The distinction between proving guilt and proving innocence is important, but very early on it seemed that wasn't clear with some people. How does that affect how people process testimony and evidence, I wonder?

I didn't notice any particular difference between 1st and 2nd trial- I recall that with the 1st trial I did that there was a lot of debate about wherever we had to decide if we believed he was guilty or wherever we needed to feel convinced we had proved he was guilty of the crime. The experience made me appreciate why it's hard to prosecute in cases of domestic abuse, and indeed sexual abuse as you say- because if it's simply one person's word against another without supporting evidence either way you can only deliver a not-guilty verdict.

But yeah, all in all I'd say people should look forward to being called - you're participating in a service for your community/society, and you gain an insight into all kinds of things you wouldn't have thought about before. You also end up rubbing shoulders with people from demographics you normally wouldn't, and having to have very frank exchanges with them - people who'd been complete strangers just a day or so before. I found that very interesting, as the circumstances are so different to anything else in life.

Agreed, but it sucks for those unlucky jurors who don't get called up- it's a lot of waiting around otherwise. I know someone who was called up and only sat on one case much to his frustration and he was further quite aggrieved that the company he worked for (a large multinational, many years of service and he had a senior management role) refused to pay his salary whilst he was on jury service- it's pretty scummy that some companies are like that. Fortunately he had some sort of insurance which paid out the two weeks wages he missed but still- I feel large companies should be made to pay out their employee's salary's whilst they're on this mandatory public service.