The Jury: Murder trial

[Newtonianmechanics]

Is anyone watching this on channel 4?

www.radiotimes.com/tv/entertainment/the-jury-murder-trial-channel-4-experiment-explained/

I was actually quite upset about the attitudes of some of the jury too, green shirt guy cheering at the end...awful. A woman died, her kids were left without a mum! I have never done jury service and don't really want to after this!

. People are called for Jury service randomly and given a date. No one knows what the case will be at that stage or anything about the individuals called they are just names taken from the electoral register. Then when they turn up for the case they form a panel and again randomly assigned to a case.
https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/jury-vetting

Maybe they need more vetting like other countries.. Like a situational judgement test to ensure that they have decent judgement skills (which some of these were seriously lacking).
And more support on legal
technicalities during deliberations.

In other countries jury system works differently - in America the defence and prosecution can reject a certain number of potential jurors so they can eliminate people they think are likely to be strongly against them.

In England the defence can reject a number of potential jurors (don't think the prosecution can). It happened with one juror on a jury I was on which must have been a bit of a shock for him!

I couldn't agree more, what were these people thinking? Firstly, they were basing a lot of what they thought on the fact that they 'liked' the man, Secondly, on their own personal circumstances with one woman even saying 'I wish I had someone to look after me like that'. The bottom line is, he murdered this woman because he was angry and used the excuse that she had smashed a couple of plates on the floor, which we can't actually say was done by her even.

Terrible!

Chanel 4 The Jury
I can not fathom what is going through these peoples minds!
When one Jury said that he had thrown things at his wife when he got angry I was flabbergasted, he said it like it was OK, this was a normal reaction to someone annoying him.... it really isn't!

Juries should be checked for misogynistic men before they are selected, as they are totally skewed in their thinking. Surely general stupidity should also preclude someone from serving!!!

Really? Was any indication of why given. I thought in the UK you were stuck with the jury fate dealt you (unless there was a specific circumstance like a juror knowing the defendant/victim).
Was it before the trial started?
In the US they fill in questionnaires so they have lots of information to go on. In the UK neither side know anything about the jurors other than what they can see so unless a juror had a blatant tattoo or something they would only have age, sex, race and religion that was obvious from clothing to go on.

I totally understand how you feel, I also didn't like the way they dismissed the young guys opinions saying he doesn't have 'life' experience..... so patronising!

That guy in green, what a neanderthal! send him back to the cave he crawled out of.

That guy didn't have to kill his wife, he could have left, could have separated, could have done lots of things... I also think it was not helpful asking her ex boyfriends for their opinions, exes can be very vindictive. He had 18 character witnesses where were hers? surely she had some friends they could have spoken to to get a balanced view of Helen. None of his friends had a good opinion of the victim, so biased, so sad! OMG, even interviewed the vicar (the murderers sister)

Really? Was any indication of why given. I thought in the UK you were stuck with the jury fate dealt you (unless there was a specific circumstance like a juror knowing the defendant/victim).

Yes that's basically it in Wales & England. It also extends to a juror knowing a witnesses (and any one else in the court room). Any sign of favour either way will get a juror dismissed. Several years ago, in my local Crown Court, a female juror was dismissed after she had pass a note to the Defence Barrister, telling him she had taken a shine to him. The Barrsiter had to tell the judge and she was dismissed.

For me, it’s such an interesting topic and a great one that C4 brought to light. It has people talking and asking questions and wondering.. better than discussing some other shows which consumes telly these day about looks and appearances.
I have to admit with this one though, it does make me slightly anxious towards jury service. To cause a conversation and see the side that we don’t get to see which is in itself quite controversial.
I understand anger, I don’t think anything would cause me myself to strangle someone to the point they are maybe not conscious or semi conscious.. the furthest would be to kick with anger if someone hurt my family. Everyone has their own stories though but the absolute shocker is if he did that left and came back with a hammer. I am sorry but that’s taking it too far. Murder!
I had a friend who was prosecuted and served a couple of years for man slaughter and it was as I always believe manslaughter would be, no previous records re violence, too much alcohol or whatever and he punched and the death was caused by the head injury on the pavement but if he hadn’t have punched him he wouldn’t have hit his head. It was sad for the families on both sides and I hope to think that there is huge remorse in him for doing it but I just can’t help thinking with this case no matter how “nice” the accused is, that’s neither here nor there. It’s easy to put on a mask and pretend for some people and to mimic attributes which would stimulate sorrow, sadness and feelings of “poor him” from the jurors.
Fact, he strangled then left then got a hammer then used it quite deliberately. When you are out of control I assume going outside taking a breath it would wake you up unless you have perhaps mental health difficulties which would be previously documented. He came back in and finished it off. I didn’t realise she was still alive en route to hospital.
when did he call the ambulance? Straight after hammer or..
sorry, great topic (not meaning to sound disrespectful) but it’s a good topic to discuss to broaden thoughts and expectations and consequences of the jury service.
Ps. I’ve never posted on this before last night. I have been consumed with mother duties. It’s refreshing to be in a forum to discuss wee things that I can’t discuss with anyone to use brain cells and communicate with passionate folk.

I wonder if actually the jury is a little bit of a figure head (like the royal family) in many cases, since the judge decides the sentence. So you have a manslaughter verdict in the British airways case resulting in a sentence of similar length to many murder convictions. In this case the jury said manslaughter and the judge clearly agreed as he gave one of the shorter sentences available.

Not at all. The judge does decide the sentence, but the jury decides the verdict.

Really? Was any indication of why given. I thought in the UK you were stuck with the jury fate dealt you (unless there was a specific circumstance like a juror knowing the defendant/victim).
Was it before the trial started?

Yes, really! No explanation given but my thought was, that the defendant was black and the rejected juror bore a slight facial resemblance to Martin Webster who was high up in the National Front - a racist political party, very prominent in the 1980s when this trial took place. It was as the jurors were sworn in; a few of us had already been sworn in, and when this guy stood up, the defence council shouted, 'object' very loudly, so he had to be replaced by someone else.

If you knew the defendant, I think it would be up to you to excuse yourself. I live in a very small town now so would imagine it happens quite a lot here!

I've always wanted to serve on a jury but this program has changed my mind somewhat. If I was serving alongside Mr Greenshirt-caveman-womanhater for instance, I couldn't let his vile misogynistic comments go unchallenged. I wonder, does anyone know, if a juror reported another juror for making bigoted remarks of any kind, what would happen?

I think it's an interesting concept but think the issue with this kind of programme is the editing.

The original trial was 9 days long, whilst they did there's over 6 days which whilst I'm sure there's a lot of wasted time during a trial they also seemed to have gone on many breaks.

Also I didn't find the acting bad, at points they had people crying! But I find it hard to see how the people on the stand could adequately portray the tone and manner of the statements which can have a big impact.

I'm also wary of the fact they wore the same clothes potentially for editing purposes. Considering we got around 2hrs of TV ( minus the adverts) to cover 6 days - originally 9 - of trials and about 15 minutes to portray two days of deliberations. Its easy to see that the editors can sway the production in the way they wanted to making him seem more/less guilty of murder depending on their opinions.

I didn't like the cheering from both sides when someone changed their minds and didn't like that everyone seemed to have background experiences that swayed them and were open to talking about it. I can't imagine a camera crew coming to my home and talking how I threw coffee and then got run over by a car by my partner!

I think what would be interesting would be multiple juries such as mixed sex, all women, all men, all white, all black etc and seeing the difference in the way its discussed and how they come to the decision and the decision itself.

Mr Greenshirt is merely a randomly selected member of society - a peer of the defendant. You don't like him - too bad. Nobody is saying you have to go on a dinner date with him afterwards. He is entitled to his own opinion, but that's why you have 12 members of a jury, to minimise any minority opinion. He might well not agree with your opinions. Just come to your decision as to the question that is put to you. If it's a 'hung jury', that has a whole can't decide on a verdict - go back and tell the Court and the Judge will take it from there.

Yes I was hoping that we'd see the summing up - it's so crucial for setting the framework and parameters for the jury, and might have shed more light on how they reached their verdicts.

I do wonder to what extent the different verdicts were engineered by production? I would expect they'd have had a good idea well in advance that Mr Greenshirt would convince his jury of a manslaughter verdict. Can't immediately think who was in the other jury that would nudged things the other way but I can't help but believe that given these were vetted participants that the outcome wasn't left wholly to chance.

@CroccyWoccy I was hoping that we'd see the summing up - it's so crucial for setting the framework and parameters for the jury, and might have shed more light on how they reached their verdicts

Here is a link to advice given to Crown Court Judges, see chapter 16 for summing up examples of defence cases - including 'loss of control'. The whole book is very interesting if you have the time and inclination.

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/JCO/Documents/eLetters/CCBB_first_supplement_071211.pdf

Apologies here is an uptodate version.

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Crown-Court-Compendium-Part-I-June-2023-updated-Feb-2024.pdf

Thank you for that link @sawdustformypony

It is horrifying how so many 'jurists' have misogynistic views - because she had children with more than one father, the house wasn't tidy enough, she was 'difficult ' - which of those accusations, if true, warranted a death sentence?

The women as well as the men.

And the student whose views were dismissed as he doesn't have 'life experience '. He does have a couple of brain cells to rub together, however, which makes his opinion worth listening to.

I did a bit of a Google earlier and it appears that rules changed in 1988 so if this was an 80's trial it wouldn't have been the current system. There are a only a very few strict criteria in which you can excluded from an English/Welsh jury essentially that you shouldn't be doing jury service at all (and there is a limited list of reasons for this) or that you wouldn't give a fair trial so I can only imagine that they had reason to believe the chap they excluded wouldn't have been neutral to a black defended. It's not like America where they will deliberately include/excluded mothers because the think they will be more sympathetic. Etc.

In England they put you into a 15 and if you want to be excluded from a particular trial you have to have good reason and hope three people haven't got a better reason than you.

My initial 15 was put forward for a trial due to last 5 weeks - I was due to get married in 6.5 weeks. I had to ask to be excused then hope there weren't 3 people will holidays/operations etc booked before be. I didn't want to be in court every day untill a week before the wedding as we had lots to do and I was worried that the trial could go on longer than anticipated. Fortunately no one else had anything that was deemed more important so I was excused and put with a new group and got a 3 day trial and that was all.

I thought it was interesting that speaking in very broad terms the more measured jurors came to a murder verdict and the jury who seemed very swayed by peer pressure came to a manslaughter verdict in accord with the real trial outcome. That didn't sit well with me. I feel there must've been more compelling evidence at the real trial. Or was art imitating life?

It appeared to me that, along with some on the blue jury, members of the red jury made up their minds from appearance, demeanour and personal beliefs and experience and nothing was going to change their mind. They applied an awful lot of peer pressure as though it was a game to triumph in and their interpretation of beyond reasonable doubt seemed to suggest they'd never find anyone guilty of murder, ever.

Some of the younger or quieter jurors seemed to give the facts more consideration, but there were still people who just didn't seem to want to bear the weight of responsibility of making the murder decision.

I agreed with the guy who asked them to stop and think more as they just seemed to accept everything the defendant said as the truth. One juror even said he didn't 'look like a murderer' I was shocked at those who expressed opinions such as she goaded him into it and everyone's capable. The bus driver was never going to go for murder as he said he could see himself doing the same thing. I have no words for that. Smashing someone's head in with a hammer? Really?

On the whole I found it unsatisfying as an experiment and concerning. From what I heard I concluded it was murder. The initial loss of control whereby the victim ended up unconscious on the floor I understood, but to look at her and think she's not dead enough, I need a weapon and I need to keep attacking her, appeared to be a calculated thought process and a sustained attack with a very definite end in mind.

@WingingItSince1973 I am so terribly sorry both for your loss and for the outcome of the trial, you must live with that unfairness every day.

This was so very depressing.

I have been very anti the jury system since I was called 20 years ago. Some of the attitudes I heard then absolutely appalled me. The worst was 2 women who fancied the defence barrister on a murder trial. They refused to agree to a guilty verdict because they wanted the barrister to 'win'. There is literally nobody you can complain to, its all secret.

Wtf! 😬

I like the sound of the Danish system but let's be honest, that wouldn't get funded here. The system is on its knees as it is.

A trained foreperson sounds like a relatively affordable improvement that wouldn't be difficult to implement though.