AIBU to think that jurors should receive a debrief?

[Pixa]

I recently became aware that jurors do not receive a debrief when coming to the end of their duties.

AIBU to think that some jurors may not have the emotional resilience needed to deal with the cases they have been involved in. Surely there should be some kind of debrief process for those that need it?

YANBU

I agree. It is awful they don't. I hope I never get called for jury service.

YANBU. There's an absolutely horrific case going on in Ireland at the moment; the jury are deliberating. The evidence that they have had to look at is very disturbing. It must have an awful effect on them.

www2.le.ac.uk/departments/psychology/research/previous-highlights/report-warns-of-jury-service-trauma

Concerns have been expressed about this on and off for a few years now.

That article mentions possibility of prosecution for contempt, but I would really hope that DPP would never decide it was in the public interest to prosecute for contempt (as potentially distressing information would have come out in open court, not the closed jury deliberations).

If there was no need to consider contempt, is there any reason why existing NHS services are unsuitable?

As someone who regularly gives evidence at court I had no idea that a debrief process doesn't exist.
I accept that many cases are a bit dull - financial laws etc however in instances of violence against the person it should be mandatory!
YANBU.

Depends what you mean. If you mean a special talk about what happened next, yabu. In that case the 'debrief' is the judgment. These are a matter of public record and you can ask for it at the court if you weren't present when it was delivered. The courts can't really release statements about the case which aren't the judgment as that would undermine the whole point of the court system (ie that people should only be judged after having due process in open court). If you mean that jurors should in difficult cases be directed towards counselling services then yanbu. But with the current financial strains on the justice system it would not be possible for courts to pay for these, so jurors would have to go through the nhs. It's hard to overemphasise how little money there is going to the justice system these days, and counselling jurors is the least of our worries constitutionally speaking.

Interesting question, OP. I do think that jurors need to be monitored and protected in some way. There is some evidence that a psychological debriefing immediately after a trauma (suppose you witnessed someone being killed, for example) can be counterproductive, fixing the details in the person's mind rather than letting them fade. I don't know if the same would apply in a particular distressing criminal case. I certainly agree that something needs to be done to support jurors in those cases.

I've done JS a couple of times, and thankfully, the cases I've been on have been fairly minor. Having said that, during one, we had to examine some photos of injuries - not terribly horrific, but they could have been deemed disturbing. The sort of thing you'd not show on TV before 9pm - mainly blood.

I think that in the more traumatic cases (and there were some going on) then some sort of assistance needs to be there. Theycall, I agree - but this is not how it ought to be. If people are to be deliberately exposed to things that are upsetting (as in, a jury is selected rather than someone randomly witnessing the events) then help should be in place, and it should not be up to the juror to fund this.

I found the evidence from the case I was a juror on quite traumatising. I also found when they were found guilty, sentenced and the cell doors banging difficult.

Very good question. I am fairly resilient emotionally, and sat on a murder trial at the Old Bailey. There were elements of the evidence that were quite graphic but what was in a way more challenging was that the trial was abandoned a week in when one of the defendant's changed his plea. I always wonder what happened afterwards.

Whilst I was there, there was a high profile child neglect case being tried and we all really felt for those jurors because whilst we were reading the edited highlights of what had happened in the papers, they were having to sit and listen to it all in detail. They really looked like they were being put through the mill.

Can you imagine having to be a juror on something like the Baby Peter case or similar. I worked in the criminal justice system and was trained to listen to difficult information but I would struggle as a juror.

I was a witness in a case once which was abandoned. No one communicated with us about what was happening. It was a farce. I think witness care has progressed but jurors should at least have access to telephone counselling. I appreciate there is a cost to this but they are undertaking a public duty which coukd scar them for life psychologically.

I thought that in quite traumatic cases jurors were offered counselling? During the Ian Watkins case it was mentioned they would be offered support, then he plead guilty and they didn't see any evidence (thank goodness).

I completely agree. I was a juror on a high profile murder case and some of the evidence I saw and heard was horrific. It's certainly changed my view of the world we live in and affected me for quite some time afterwards.

Once we gave our verdict we were dismissed and that was it, just left to get on with our lives! Some sort of debrief would have helped me as you can't speak to anyone about the trial.

In the end us jurors went to the pub and drank a lot and talked amongst us as that was all we could do.

This was a few years ago now and I'm fine but it did it Unsettle me for some time afterwards.

However I would say in many ways it was an interesting and fantastic experience. I didn't have a clue how the high court worked and it gave me great insight and I learnt a lot about myself during those 2 months. I also made some friends who I still keep in touch with.

Don't get me wrong, it's a horrible reason to be in court but I have to say the system here is very fair and I feel quite honoured to have been a part of it

YANBU, I was head juror in a very traumatic case, and in the end I had to give a verdict I didn't agree with (the judge accepted 10 to 2 as we could not agree), I was in tears when I got out of the courtroom and it completely wrecked me for weeks.

I still think about it now and pray I never get called for jury duty again.

Interestingly, there's no good evidence that debriefing is helpful, and numerous studies since the late 1990s (2002) have found that it is actively harmful.

they don't already do this .

I hope I'm never called up.

Does sitting on a traumatic trial still get you removed from the list of potential jurors? The elderly gentleman who lived next door to us when I was little had been a juror on some terrible murder case in the 1950s, I think, and he and the rest of the jury were exempted from doing jury duty ever again, as the judge in their case said they had had to see and hear such terrible things that they should not have to serve again.

I was just 18 when I did jury service and I found it very upsetting. And it wasn't even a particularly bad case, compared to some.

Unfortunately that's a myth in Scotland poledra. One of my fellow jurors was cited again the following year, she was devastated!! I thought you got a 3 or 5 year exemption from jury duty but you don't although it might be different in England etc.

I know that on Broadchurch the judge did say to the jurors that they would be excused from any future jury duty due to the distressing nature of the case.

But I am aware that this was a fictional drama and wasn't known for having correct legal procedures in it!

I agree there needs to be a support system in place, I was on the jury for a rape case...very difficult and affected me for a long time.

With that said, testifying had an even more profound effect on me...to the point where I would think twice before admitting to being a witness (I would do the right thing, but I would definitely hesitate).

The thing i don't agree with is that the jury has to leave out of the same door of the court as those that have been on trial.
I did JS five years ago and after the first trial the person on trial was sent home after being found guilty to await sentencing. One of the ladies on the jury with me was a driving instructor who had parked her car in the car park at court. She left court the same time as the person on trial. She was too scared to get into her car (name and number on car) in case the man took her number. She pretended to take a phone call until he had been driven away!!

I think that offering a debrief would be a good idea. I have served on two juries, and after the first trial, one of my fellow jurors became very upset - the subject matter of the trial was not upsetting or traumatic in any way - it was a money laundering operation. But we had found the defendant guilty on most of the counts, and she was upset by the fact that we had made the decisions that would send him to jail.

The thing that disturbed me most about doing jury duty on a murder trial was the clerk telling us 'just to warn you, things could get hairy in the court if the family don't get the verdict they're hoping for'.

Also there was no back door for the jury to leave through so theoretically we could have been followed and harrassed by the (extremely rough) relatives.

Jury safety!

xx28xx not sure if that's right, there's a five year option to be excused from jury service. There was nothing to stop your friend from serving on a jury again, but she could have refused to do so for five years.

I served on a jury in Scotland in 2012 and was called again last year so ticked the box on the form saying I'd served on a jury within 5 years and was exercising the right to refuse.

www.scotcourts.gov.uk/docs/scs---court-users/juryhighcourtsheriffcourt.pdf?sfvrsn=2