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/

KingofDays · Yesterday 21:02

“So basically murder has to be pre meditated, pre planned for quite some time.”

No, this is wrong.

You can murder someone all of a sudden. You could be in a rage but have control.

Binged first 3 episodes last night.

This partial defence of “loss of control” is very problematic in my opinion. There is no objective evidence for it.

However, even using this defence and the criteria helpfully quoted above by a PP, For me this is murder because he didn’t kill her by strangulation. If he’d completely lost control and strangled her I can see you might be able to get away with that defence.

But he stopped.

and then he picked up a hammer (I don’t care if that was in the house or not. It is the stopping and starting again that makes me think he didn’t lose control.

Also, all the way through this we were waiting to hear what on Earth she could have done that provoked this (on this occasion, above and beyond what sounds like psychological abuse that she’d subjected him to, which is obviously terrible).

Did she attack him? No
Did she threaten to send some horrendous lie around to everyone he knew ? No
Did she threaten his children? No

This particular argument was because she put away his things very carelessly and then smashed a load of crockery! Awful, yes but I don’t thinking a reasonable person would find that grounds for murder.

Does he deserve to get murder if he was the lovely, patient, too-caring man as portrayed and was suffering through an abusive relationship?

No possibly not. Perhaps she was a terrible abuser and this is sad all round.

But it is still murder.

*However, even using this defence and the criteria helpfully quoted above by a PP, For me this is murder because he didn’tkill her by strangulation. If he’d completely lost control and strangled her I can see youmightbe able to get away with that defence.

But he stopped.

and then he picked up a hammer (I don’t care if that was in the house or not. It is the stopping and starting again that makes me think he didn’t lose control*

From my brief reading round the subject, there doesn't seem to be a particular requirement for "loss of control" to be a momentary reaction. Although it might be easier to imagine a momentary loss of control, even if he walked away to get a hammer and came back it could still all be judged to be a loss of control.

What I don't entirely understand is why this defence is only available with murder, and not with assault etc (i.e. he wouldn't have been able to use this defence if she had lived). Is it just because murder has a mandatory life sentence so there's less discretion for a judge to take account of the circumstances?

Good question about defence for assault! It really doesn’t make sense.

If there are no guidelines for length of time, it is just down to what people find plausible. And yes, I guess the shorter the period of time, the more plausible for most people.

Remember, this is a complete loss of control, where you aren’t in control of your body, rather than a rage.

I also find the whole issue of whether he has a memory of it or not to be muddying the waters.

I don’t think memory of it comes into any definition of loss of control?? But again, it might make a loss of control seem more plausible to people.

I have a loss of memory of certain extreme traumatic events in my life but that isn’t because I wasn’t in control at the time, it is PTSD. Key part being the P-post.

Another point that none of us are considering is the point of putting someone away for 20 years as opposed to around 3.
I have a friend who works in prisons with male prisoners who have generally killed their wives or girlfriends. She oversees their rehabilitation and time in prison. She has done so for 30 years and never had someone go on to commit a similar crime on release. Do we want to pay to keep these people of the streets for longer than is needed?

I can't help but wonder if the timing of this being shown at the same time as 'The British Airways Killer' is purely coincidental?
There seems to be a degree of similarity between the cases, man kills (estranged) wife, is found guilty of manslaughter rather than murder etc.

Hadn’t heard of that case @Girlontherailreplacementbusservice and am puzzled why he was given 24 years for manslaughter?

I was also thinking it was strange that these two programmes were on in the same week. I watched the British Airways Killer right before the Jury and there are so many similarities.

No one watching that documentary could feel sorry for that monster but interestingly, he was found guilty of manslaughter by a jury.

He dug a grave in the woods in preparation for her murder and he still got manslaughter. What was going on with that jury?

I assume the judge felt he should have been done for murder and so gave the maximum sentence he could for manslaughter.

I haven’t started tonight’s episode but I have found on the whole that the acting is just so so poor! It’s spoken so unnaturally it’s distracting. And even the character witnesses are so fake, it’s dreadful.
Interesting premise though, I am just sitting down to watch the final one.

I presumed this too, I read once that’s why they wear the same clothes in Bakeoff, so they can chop up the footage and edit it in anywhere. To give the illusion of continuity.
But in this case it’s also helpful for us to be able to identify them, ie green tshirt man is an obnoxious twat 😂 and everyone can agree because they know who he is!

I don't think the acting is poor at all . It seems strange because they are using the actual words of the trial and the words of the character witnesses. We are used to dramas that are scripted. It always sounds odd when actors read actual words.
re the juries I am finding the blue jury much more measured and thoughtful. The red jury and especially the man in the green shirt are much too emotional even though the judge said not to use emotion. The man in the green shirt is taking it all much too personally and treating it like a game to win

Ricky's behaviour is disgusting.

Probably told to do it but the celebrations are crass.

Completely agree. I didn't like him and, I think it was Sonia, saying well done when people came to their side. I thought the chairs of the juries should have called them out on that.

What's the solution, do we think?
A professional foreperson?
Three/six month paid secondments to jury service so that initial training can be given?

Not that different from the magistrates we have at the moment - except their sentencing powers are much reduced. Always difficult to get away from a situation where forceful personalities come to the fore.

It has really thrown a light on how juries work - the woman (Lurelle?) was peer pressured into changing her mind because they needed an answer and it was presumed that the two men wouldn’t change their mind, I felt like she was picked off for being a weaker and easier to manipulate member of the jury. Just one example. The fact that they have to come to a unanimous decision means that people will always just agree to change their minds for the sake of making things easier.
How many miscarriages of justice have there been and how many more will there continue to be?
Obviously the real solution is to not commit a crime in the first place but that’s not where we are so we need to tighten up the procedures in place.

It’s actually a bloody terrifying prospect, being at the mercy of a jury.

I got quite cross at parts of the deliberation as I felt the foreperson could have intervened with some useful questions to help crystallise jurors' thoughts. Which is why I wonder if a professional foreperson might have helped.
I wanted them to ask individuals 'when do you believe the loss of control began and ended' because that would have been crucial to my decision.

I'll come back to this thread next week

So the lack of family support for ‘Helen’ is explained at the end with the statement saying the family deeply regret they were not offered the opportunity to have their voices heard during the trial. WTAF, why was the defendant allowed to have character references but the victim was not?

I thought the message at the end meant the real trial so this fake trial was following it and that’s why no character references for her

Yes but the reason was they weren’t allowed to speak.

You wouldn't expect there to be character witnesses for the victim (the victim isn't on trial), would you? But I wondered why the prosecution didn't call any witnesses to challenge the defendant's account of the relationship. Surely the victim spoke to family or friends about the problems in the relationship?

The real trial was in 2012 - was this before victim impact statements were introduced?

I found this so interesting! Wow. Really glad I watched it to see a side of the decision making that goes on. I was shocked how much influence string debaters and stubborn single minded people can have on the whole jury. I’d like to believe it isn’t quite like this in real time. Ie. The people selected would be to make better telly and to prove a point perhaps. I don’t believe juries can be selected to judge a trial like this who are so obviously strong willed and I’m trying to not use the word bullying but it came across like if you are not forthright and strong your decision will be overlooked and dismissed.