Tell me about your jury service experiences

[Ricekrispie22]

How many days?
How long was your day?

I’ve been called up twice but was excused on both occasions for medical reasons, but they did say I could not be excused for a third time. I have served twice in another country with a very similar legal system and it was interesting, but very boring sitting around.

Fast forward at least a decade and I’m a SAHM with a 5yo and have been looking for a full-time job now but also can’t get before/after-school care so I’m not sure what on earth the courts expect people in this position do (no family local, childminders with vacancies rare, school club has long waiting lists). DH’s job is such that he simply cannot care for our child before/after school.

I did it about 30 years ago, first week I was never called, the 2nd week I had a week long case , a gang related stabbing. Interesting , I’m glad I did it. There is a lot of sitting around though and that was before WiFi and phones etc so I had to read books and magazines.

I've done two, a teargassing and s stabbing. The first one was hilarious, a flock of ne'er-do-wells telling ludicrous porkies. Guilty after 10 minutes.
The second was nasty. A bully had nearly been killed by one of his victims. It took 4 hours to agree 10-2, because one juror refused to convict because it was State oppression, and the other hadn't understood anything that had gone on. Mind you, it's not wise to stand outside making throat slitting gestures at jurors, even if you are a stunted streak of piss.

I was on jury service in 2008, was very interesting to see how a trial works and what I also found interesting was the mix of jurors

The trial was for ABH in self defence but some of the older jurors in our own discussions were very much of the thinking that violence even in self defence is wrong and wouldn't discuss it which was a bit frustrating

In the end because of that we couldn't reach a verdict but I would love to do it again

What a fascinating thread.

Are you given any guidance as to what “reasonable doubt” means in practice, or do you all have to decide what it means to you?

Is the jury foreman told how to lead the jury’s deliberations?

When the court officials call out 15 names, how do they choose which 12 are to serve on the jury?

Are you given any guidance as to what “reasonable doubt” means in practice, or do you all have to decide what it means to you?

We were. The case was historic child abuse case so no physical evidence and nothing like CCTV or anything they could 'evidence' - everything hinged on 'reasonable doubt', so, I don't know if it was because of the nature of the case, but the judge was very helpful.

Is the jury foreman told how to lead the jury’s deliberations?

All the jury are given advice on how to proceed. It is up to the 12 members of the Jury to elect who the foreman is. In my jury, we were fortunate, everyone was willing to listen to each other, and there were a few people who put forward suggestions of how we proceeded, once we were sent out to deliberate. It was all very civil.

In fact, I said afterwards that I felt we didn't 'reflect society' in that we were all calm, relatively intelligent and educated, seemingly open-minded. As all of society aren't like that. I think I must just have been very lucky.

I ended up there for 13 days and did 2 cases. It was such an interesting experience and I'm very glad I had the opportunity to do it. One case was rape, the other racially aggravated assault.

One case I was with a really insightful mix of people who were very diligent and thorough in deliberation. The other was a nightmare, purely because there was one rather racist jury member and another who didn't really give a shit.

I did jury service as an 18 year old, was two weeks IIRC and did two cases. Was very enjoyable.

Thank you @BackforGood. I love learning about this mysterious, essential process.