What was your jury service like?

[Eastie77]

Obviously I don't want anyone to write anything too revealing or expect a response from anyone who is currently on a jury but I'm interested in experiences other MNetter's have had.

I completed jury service a while ago and recently met up for a coffee with one of the jurors I bonded with. The case dragged on and on and was fairly unpleasant (kidnapping, fraud) but I was impressed by both the defence and prosecution legal teams and I learned about the law so overall it was quite interesting. We were reminiscing about some of the 'characters' on the jury.

Personally I was a little a little taken aback that one of the jurors really struggled with English and I wondered how on earth she followed a lot of the legal arguments and therefore made a decision based on the evidence presented. I’m not saying for a moment that poor English = less intelligent but even native speakers on the jury had trouble following a lot of the arguments so I think she must have struggled. Before this experience I had always believed a jury system was very fair I came away thinking I prefer the system in other countries where a group of judges decide as opposed to 11 random members of the public seems who may or may not be able to grasp what is going on!

I spent a week sitting in one waiting area, then a holding area, then back to a waiting area.

Then told to go for an hour and come back

Rinse and repeat every day

Not one case went through

Total waste of time

I have never had to do jury duty, but from a theoretical standpoint, there are many advantages and disadvantages to the system we have in the UK.

As you have pointed out, yes, some people may struggle to follow complex cases, whether that is because English is not their first language, they have learning difficulties or a low IQ, or simply because the terms and concepts are completely alien to them.

However, the jury system encourages and upholds transparency in the whole justice system, and acts as a check or balance to ensure that power is not abused.

IMO (and many may disagree) the importance of transparency and the added check juries provide, outweigh the disadvantages.

It was an upsetting case (child abuse) and I still think about it and the people involved now 3 years later, but I was glad to see how the justice system worked and that justice was done in the end.
It was not like how I was led to expect from posts on MN and other websites that I looked at beforehand. I expected it to be like KatoPotato's experience, and was looking forward to 2 weeks off from my stressful job so no night shifts and weekends at home, time to sit round and read books etc, but I was picked for the case on the first day and it lasted most of the time. There were just a couple of days sitting around at the end and then we got the last day off.

I did it years ago, it was quite a funny case, a neighbour dispute over land! The man in the dock had beaten up his neighbour, so at first it seemed a clear cut case, but the man beaten up actually turned out to be the neighbour from hell, and there were lots of witness statements against him from very respectable members of their community, and the man in the dock got off scot free, and the judge wanted the accuser investigated! This was decades ago, so hopefully not too identifying.

my case had to be restarted.
i guess we were a mixed bunch of 12 people, one lady taught another lady how to knit, one lady thought you had to be employed to be on jury service
we didnt really chat.

I only had one case but it kept being delayed as there was a significant local historical sex abuse case beforehand. He waited until all the evidence had been heard and then pleaded guilty. Glad I didn't get that one. Mine was an assault, friends who had fallen out, drink involved.

I only really remember 2 of the jurors, one was a guy who was due to become a father any day and worried his wife would go into labour. Another was a vile woman who wanted parking to be reimbursed because she didn't want to get on the bus with all the immigrants and unemployed people

I found the process quite interesting but there was lots of hanging around and being sent home. I would do it again if asked.

I'm available for jury service from July, I'm dreading it

I got picked for a case within a day, and it was quite interesting.

I personally found it quite inspiring, seeing how the judge was committed to fairness and making sure the experience was as endurable for everyone involved as possible. The witness/victim had significant emotional problems, so seeing how the judge balanced their wellbeing and comfort with the need for clarity and good participation was very impressive.

The jury had a good ethnic mix, which was important considering those involved, and I think we all worked quite well together to balance our opinions and assumptions. I came away feeling good about our justice system because of it. A lot of judges, including ours, tend to be older white men (not a criticism, just a natural outcome of slow demographic change) so having a group with a good mix of men, women and people from non-white communities made me feel confident that as justice had been done as much as possible.

Awful. The things I heard stayed with me for years. I did at one point consider counseling.

Colleague went off for what we all expected was to be 2 weeks, trial lasted 16 weeks.

Mine was a very long time ago. I don't remember much sitting about, I was on 1 case which I think must have lasted most of the time. It was fraud, not particularly interesting.

Everyone was a native English speaker, a mix of ages I think I was the youngest. I am surprised that you can be on a jury if you struggle with understanding English.

I did jury service several years ago. The case I was on was manslaughter and very sad. It lasted just over six weeks, with a couple of days deliberating at the end.
I found the whole experience interesting, and still keep in touch with two other jury members who have become friends.
The jury all received letters from the judge excusing us form future jury service for 8yrs, as it was a long and difficult case.

I found it boring however DH loved it.

My case was theft & DH had one case which was disability fraud.

I was just 18 and I loved it.

Mine was a while back and I remember the whole experience as being very intense, even though the two cases I was involved in weren't particularly dramatic. It was just the fact that I spent an entire fortnight somewhere else, with people I didn't know, with strange procedures, and the clock seemed to move forward at a very slow pace at times.

I too came away from it extremely impressed by the amount of detail and effort that (quite rightly) seemed to go in to everything and the overall professionalism of it all. And I always remember the look of absolute disbelief and delight on the face of the young barrister when the jury came down on the side of the client he was defending. We found out later (somehow) that it had been his first case.

What was also odd was me and some fellow jurers finding ourselves in a carriage of a tube train afterwards with the cleared defendant, the judge and a couple of the (hostile) witnesses! Awkward or what? But we were all terribly British about it and pretended to read our newspapers ... .

My mum told me about hers.
A lot of waiting around and then a short trial.
One of the jurors changed the outcome of the case as they decided to go and investigate an eye witness testimony and worked out that they couldn't possibly have seen what they said they had.
Don't know how legal that was!

I had to travel quite a long way, often to sit around for a few hours and then be sent home. I did get one case though and it was a minor assault. I found it fascinating, not least because I was very familiar with the location where it took place. We found him guilty and I did feel it was a great responsibility.

What was also odd was me and some fellow jurers finding ourselves in a carriage of a tube train afterwards with the cleared defendant, the judge and a couple of the (hostile) witnesses! Awkward or what? But we were all terribly British about it and pretended to read our newspapers...

That's so weird!

shady that really sounds bizarre . I would have hated to have ended up in that situation with the defendents in my case. They were people you really wouldn't want to bump into.

Eastmids my big fear was ending up with a really upsetting case e.g. child abuse. Thankfully it wasn't anything like that but it was extreamly unsettling.

Can you refuse jury service? What if you are self employed and going to court would mean that you lose your clients?
Can't afford to not work and have to start all over again.

Happily the case didn't involve any violence at all Eastie77. It would have been worrying if it had though! I just felt really embarrassed for the defendant who had had some not ideal things revealed about him during the case (but those things hadn't asked up to making him guilty ifyswim).

Soul destroyingly boring despite being an "interesting" case. The star witness was an absolute clown who I wouldn't have trusted as far as UI could have thrown her.

And I was the youngest juror by some margin so felt really out of place!

asked up = added up

Tensixtysix I think you can refuse but being self-employed is not always accepted as a valid reason? Our childminder refused on these grounds when she was called up and she was told she would just have to claim the lost earnings from her insurance .

When I did my jury service the pool of potential jurors were herded into a room where we told by the judge that the case could last around 6 weeks. People had to raise their hands and ask to be excused if they felt they couldnt't stay that long. I remember a woman explained she was the sole carer for an elderly relative. The judge said she would just have to make alternative arrangements if she was selected.

I got put on the jury for a horrible case involving teenagers/young adults tying up, torturing and eventually killing a man (with learning difficulties of my memory serves me correctly) those prosecuting told the jury something they shouldn't have told us almost immediately resulting in us all being dismissed from jury duty as a whole immediately.

I've done it a few years ago. One of the ladies on the jury was a driving instructor with her name on her car. We found the bloke on trial guilty and he walked out at the same time as.the di. She had to pretend to take a call so he didn't get her name and number. She waited till he had gone to go back to the car !