Jury Service

[Wiltinglillies]

Inspired by (but not about) the thread on innocent people, I wondered how many who had been on Jury service felt it was a positive experience and that the justice system was correctly served by you and your jury colleagues. (Iyswim)

I've never been asked, nor have any close family.

Don't fgs reply if you're on active jury service right now!!!

I did it a few years ago.
It was strongly impressed upon us by the judges that if we had the slightest doubt, we must return a Not Guilty verdict.

Much like my experience. There were 2 cases - first one the judge said if there is ANY DOUBT (big pause) then you must return a verdict of not guilty. Second time she just rattled it off.

I've done it twice, two different crown courts. First time I was 18 and we had a child abuse case. It wasn't clear cut at all and we couldn't return a verdict at all as there was no way we could all agree to even reach a majority verdict. I'm not sure if they decided to go for a re-trial or not. Second time I was in my early twenties and it was an assault charge I think. I think we had a majority verdict of guilty for it. Reading between the lines there was an on going feud between the two parties and it was one incident in a long line of tit for tat.

My mother did it and was relieved it was a comparatively straightforward burglary - she said it seemed pretty clear-cut in this case, but wouldn't have liked to have been on a rape case where it was mostly he said, she said.

A friend at work did it and found it very interesting, to the point she was thinking about applying to be a magistrate. I think she'd be very good at it, but the main thing holding her back is time - work, daughter, other voluntary stuff - she can't do it all.

We were talking about it with another friend who had also done jury service, and they said they wouldn't want to be in court with a jury which had a lot of people who weren't that well educated - they agreed that having analytical thinking skills from having done higher education was really helpful (and the sort of work we do) - but a couple if people on the jury didn't seem to be so good at following arguments and made logical fallacies.

I have never been called.

I’m back!! Done it!

After everyone telling me I’d be sitting around doing nothing, I ended up on a 4 week trial.

Overall, I think it WAS a positive experience. Harder than I expected and I was surprised to find myself angry. Angry at the WASTE of money - as in, the huge cost to society of people committing crimes.

In terms of justice being done... I suspect it may not always be done, due to the very nature of juries and the mix of people. I got the impression of people unable to properly follow the evidence/defence for various reasons and while I think we did reach the correct decision, it was only due to perseverance by a couple of jurors. Take a different set of 12 people and I think a different outcome could have been reached.

Thanks for the update Boblemon.

I was a lone persevering juror. The other 11 decided quickly one way from the off, I slowly managed to convince each one to the opposite. A mix of misunderstanding evidence, expectations and going with the crowd.

If I hadn’t been there (or my alternative 12th juror hadn’t been so forthright), I don’t think justice would have been served. Scary.

I did jury service in 2008. The case was for ABH two work colleagues had a falling out and the defendant was claiming not guilty due to self defence he also lost his job

Now we saw in Cctv what happened but some of the jurors were very much against violence at all costs and refused to even talk about what we should find the defendant guilty or not guilty, was very frustrating when we were deliberating and after 3 hours of that we were unable to reach a verdict

If I got called up again I would love to do it again, it's all very interesting

My MIL is doing it next week. I'm super jealous!

Once

Two cases

The weirdest bit was on one case where the accused had apparently had help from friends but they weren’t in court (at that time) one of the jurors wanted to find the accused not guilty...because it wasn’t fair that he was taking the rap by himself 😳

I found it a positive experience, but nerve-wracking at the time, as I was elected chair of the jury.
It was a drugs-related case, and the way the evidence was presented made it highly likely the defendant was guilty.
But, what ultimately swung it was that it became obvious the defendant had lied, even though it wasn't noticed in court (it was to do with the date on a bottle of tablets, which we had in the jury room).
I was very nervous standing up and saying 'guilty', but it was satisfying too, as I really felt justice had been served.
(We found out after delivering the verdict that the defendant had a list of convictions as long as your arm, including ABH and burglary, plus of course drugs charges.)
I didn't particularly enjoy waking out of the court past the defendant who was being taken to prison, though, as I felt a bit vulnerable at that point.
I'd happily do it again. It was very interesting to be involved in the process.

I did it and found it very, very positive. Both in terms of faith in the justice system and personally a valuable and interesting life experience. We luckily had very very clear evidence of guilt but it still took a while to explain that to a couple of the jurors who (sorry!) weren’t very bright! After we returned the guilty verdict we heard the accused’s prior convictions and were even more certain we were right! Almost felt like a waste of time that they couldn’t just tell us he has done this before though I do get why. Worst bit was that his ethnicity was discussed by some of the jurors in an unpleasant way (didn’t go unchallenged but since he was guilty there was a horrible sense that the people talking that way felt vindicated in their comments about what ‘they’ are like... ) Most moving was seeing the families respond to the verdict - unbelievable relief from the family of the victim and heartbreak from the perpetrator’s loved ones.

I did a four week Crown court murder trial, and although enjoyed is the wrong word - it was far more complex emotionally than that, of course - I would do it again any time. The focus and detail work is fascinating, the procedures and processes are very interesting (I chatted to the jury wrangler a few times after the day's session, about why things are done as they are - it's usually some obscure way to protect the people involved, jury, staff and defendent/witnesses). Seeing how evidence is tracked and how the police do the investigative work is amazing.

I was very pleased I didn't get anything rapey or involving children, I don't know if I could have held my shit together for that.

I have been called twice. The first time, 33 years ago I sat on two cases. Both relatively easy to make decisions, one guilty and one not guilty. The second time was two years ago and I was not allocated to a case until the second week on day two. We were sworn in and heard details of the case, a very nasty rape case. We heard from the first witness and then the day finished. The following day we waited around until late morning, were called in and told that us, the second jury allocated to that case, were being dismissed as one of the barristers had taken ill and there was not enough time to hear the case in the remaining days of the week so the case was postponed. I read in the paper a couple of months later that the case had gone ahead and the man was found guilty.

Yes, there is a LOT of waiting around, being sent home on a day when not needed, being told to come in the next day a little later, and finally getting told I was not needed for the last couple of days.A bit soul destroying.

However, it can be an interesting experience if you are called as a jury member. I love a good chat and met such a complete range of people while waiting around. One woman who was really worried and seemed to live a very sheltered life. A young girl who seemed very ‘young’ and not at all worldly. I enjoyed talking to her and taking her under my wing. A man who was not happy to be there and brought nothing to occupy himself and was not prepared to be at all sociable. He just sat looking bored and annoyed.

What I did find bizarre is a table and notice board in the waiting room with lots of ‘thank you’ cards, for making jury service an enjoyable experience. It just struck me as wrong somehow. Also we were asked to put £1 a week into a pot to go towards tea, coffee and biscuits. No cafeteria there. Take plenty of snacks as it can be expensive going out to buy food.

I've done it when I was younger. I found it boring. An underage kid tried to get into a bar, was refused access, went home, changed his top and tried again.

Bouncer got stroppy as he recognises the 16 yo kid. He basically twatted him. It was on CCTV.

I thought bouncer presented himself well in the dock, but i had seen the video. He twatted the kid. Granted kid was a cocky little fucker, but 30 odd yo man should have known better.

Jury was 50/50 and we were dismissed.

Waste of fucking time

Been called but they can't accommodate my disability, thank fuck really. Being out of pocket and fucked over for childcare too never did appeal to me anyway.

I’m a court reporter. One of the most satisfying parts of court cases is when you know of the defendant’s long list of horrendous identical offences, but the jury doesn’t and they return a guilty verdict. When they hear the antecedent history they are always mighty relieved they found them guilty.

I love juries. They usually get it right IMO. I don’t think there’s a better way of getting a fair verdict.

I've done it. And it wasn't a pleasant or positive experience.

Jurors were mostly making decisions based on their heart, not evidence or logic, it was extremely ridiculous that someone's life course was being decided by the equivalent to a group of gossiping busybodies (I was young 20s, everyone else 50s,60s mostly retired white middle class types).

I was also shocked at some lax court processes, being specific would be too outing but there wasn't good separation of defense witness control Vs us jurors... I actually asked the court clerk if someone had messed up but apparently that was normal protocol. Didn't find it felt safe for me tbh, there's no way the mingling of people attending court should happen like it did. I lived in the area of one of the accused, and they read out our living location when declaring our ID to go into the jury area?!?!?? In public?!? I hope they've changed this whole process since, I fed it back.

Finally, I thought the sentencing was a farce. We listened to evidence of a fairly horrific crime, deliberated, and the bastards (who we were later told had similar convictions, strings of them) got let out due to time spent waiting for the trial, and the victim restitution was something like 50p taken off their benefits for 26 weeks.

Total fucking joke, the whole circus.

I've never questioned the validity or fitness for purpose of our justice system until that experience.

I did. I found it negative.

The prosecution failed to provide the charge sheet for the jury, so 10/12 jurors thought the guy was being tried just for possession, whereas actually he was being charged with possession with intent to distribute. So most of them had already decided he was guilty "because he had drugs on him", when that wasn't actually the question, but they didn't listen to the rest of the evidence after that point as became clear when we went to discuss. Guy had no priors for possession, his brother who lived at his parents' house too, did. In the end the judge accepted 11/12 returning a guilty verdict. The other juror who thought he was not guilty changed her vote because she needed to get home for her kids because childcare was an issue so she didn't want to argue any more and didn't really care about the outcome.

Then I realised how some people just can't understand how other people live: "why would he give the police his parents address if he says he wasn't even sleeping there and was really living at his girlfriend's?" So the idea of being tried by your "peers" doesn't really work - because someone who was 20 several decades ago doesn't understand what it's like to be 20 in this decade.

Another assault case I sat on got thrown out after about an hour when the accuser decided that, actually, maybe the defendant wasn't there after all like he thought - "my bad".

I don't know a better way to do it, but I did think it was all quite unfair and not really the "justice" I was hoping for.

DH did two weeks of jury service (2 cases, each a week long). On one of the cases, two of the jurors spoke little to no English and couldn’t follow the case at all. They were relying on one of the other jurors to translate for them.