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 do hope this programme is a trigger for some kind of rethinking of or improvements to the jury system, because it's made it so obvious that it doesn' work in its current form. However public services in this country are so fucked now I sadly don't think this will be the priority.

Greenshirt man was a misogynist and bully who was able to strongarm the rest of the jury into the verdict he preferred. Sadly this is how social groups tend to work - if you get one very headstong, domineering character people do fall into line behind them. Greenshirt man was determined from the off that the defendant was fully justified in murdering his wife because she didn't keep the house tidy. It's absolutely terrifying.

I did jury service in about 1996 and met a few people there who had been called several times but were never picked. No reasons given.

I did get picked but I thought it was a shambles, really. Two women said they couldn’t bear the thought of sending the accused man to prison, one because he looked like her son and he would never do anything like that.

Unfortunately, lots of people are shallow and thick. They also get easily bored and want to get it over with.

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

Yes, this would have been the mid 80s, and the chap would have been excluded entirely on his looks! They wouldn’t have known anything about us apart from whether we were men or women.

Basically says 2 out of three jury’s allow a man to kill an annoying woman. I’m gutted and upset at the end of this. You can push a man too far , smash some plates, he spends too much on the wedding, 2 yes if he kills your. I’m gutted

Having done jury service in South London years ago I was interested to see this show but the constant leaving the court room certainly did not occur with my two cases. The cases I was involved with were not particularly interesting , fraud of vehicle tax discs etc, however I found the whole process fascinating and very much “ enjoyed “ the experience. For sure our jury were “ persuaded “ by those forceful jurors to reach the “ correct “ decision. Some were just too eager to get the day done and dusted. Ultimately my and other jurors situation was that although we felt the accused was 100% guilty of the charges the CPS / Police case was not proved to us .

Mr Greenshirt is merely a randomly selected member of society - a peer of the defendant.

If he was on a proper jury that would be true but this wasn't a randomly selected from the electoral role jury. This was the result of a process of applying to be on TV and then the production company interviewing people and putting together people with strong opinions, pertinent life experiences etc. to create a TV show.

Of course green shirt guy could be selected for jury service but the show wasn't a recreation of exactly what happens in the real world.

The "loss of control" defence is worded specifically to provide more acknowledgement of the circumstances of women who kill abusive partners. There's plenty of examples out there of women who have been convicted of manslaughter rather than murder.

For example, this one:

Cleared of murder but guilty of manslaughter - the woman who stabbed partner to death | Worcester News

...a woman who had previously violently assaulted and stabbed her partner before the incident where she killed him during a drunken argument.

I don't think it's particularly feminist to dismiss the idea that men might ever be able to use the same defence.

Sorry haven't been back on. Thank you so much for everyone that has expressed sympathy. I didn't want to derail the thread but just to give an actual account of how jurors can be so tied to legal restraints as in our case. I haven't watched the rest of the programme it was too triggering. Xxx

The prog is nothing like being in an actual jury - it’s very tightly controlled- although I did mine just as we were coming out of covid restrictions so it was still socially distanced. At lunch I went to get food and it was summer so sat in local green space etc.
We were given a sheet to work through to arrive at a verdict together. The verdict was unanimous - we found him not guilty as it couldn’t be proved beyond reasonable doubt. I found the court process fascinating at the time (was absolutely boiling and we had to mask up which was grim!).

Saved this up to properly follow the trial so I don't forget anything (am someone who wants to be on a jury)

I'm halfway through the last episode and have gone for murder - because of the hammer. Had it "just" been the strangling I'd have gone manslaughter, but the hammer was an additional calculated act, you know hitting someone's head is going to cause serious harm and not just once but 3 times? Also surely loss of control it would just be up and down repeatedly, these were 3 clean blows

Also the experts said it was an "extreme" provocation for loss of control - nothing happened to be an extreme turnaround when walking away, he couldn't really name what she was destroying if it had been a hugely sentimental item, or she'd done something to one of the children, yes I would be more in loss of control

It's Definitely making me question if juries should be checked for potential triggers, you can see how much it's affecting the DV victims - to the point of influence?

Do they get counselling after for the more traumatic cases?

Should they be allowed to discuss until the debating at the end to prevent the stronger members influencing the more quiet ones?

Hugs to you @WingingItSince1973

Remember this horrific case?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-63200246

Rick in the green polo shirt is the stepfather of this murderer.

That is shocking! The TV company must have known this and deliberately put him in, I’m appalled by that.

Thats awful no wonder he was hell bent on manslaughter over murder. I thought him celebrating people reluctantly saying manslaughter was awful. I wonder if in a real jury situation a juror could complain to someone that they were being pressurised into changing their decision?

If that's the case, I bet he thinks that poor woman also made his SS do it, doesnt he?

I am also.
Is he still with the mother, who had a restraining order against her son but apparently they were reconciled.

It explains why he was so hell bent on manslaughter. He would never be allowed on a real jury with this connection, same as the woman (Kelly?) who stole a mobile phone.

TV company manipulating us all.

I hope he would never be allowed on a real jury but that doesn't stop the fact there are so many men out there like him who would be. If he'd been called to a jury in 2021 for example, he would have been allowed to sit as the stepson wouldn't have murdered anyone yet.

I think the programme did a brilliant job of selecting people from different backgrounds with different personalities to then show how things could play out.

The scary thing, on reflection, is the defence includes would a reasonable man of 39 behave in the same way with the same provocation.

The male jurors of the same age and sex said they would.

Men seem to think it's ok to beat a woman who annoys you over the head with a hammer. So the law says this is reasonable as loss of control.

@JoanThursday1972
*Remember this horrific case?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-63200246

Rick in the green polo shirt is the stepfather of this murderer.*

I bloody knew it. No one could be that sure it wasn't manslaughter without a pertinent back story.

• it wasn't murder, sorry

It looks like it. He's on Facebook and so is the mother, the pictures are quite revealing. He styles himself as a cognitive behavioural therapist, but the qualification came from here
https://newskillsacademy.co.uk/

@JoanThursday1972 what's his name please?

Am I allowed to post it? His surname is the same as one of the James Bond actors. Gladys Knight sang the theme song. I imagine anyone could find him by searching so I hope I am not being inappropriate with this. He's easily found, on his LinkedIn he says he left school choosing not to take any exams.

I don't know maybe not!