The jury

[NervyWegovy]

Anyone watching this? Just starting the second episode and whilst flawed I find it very interesting how people interact within the jury

No, any good? Looks a bit crazy

It was crazy, just a rehash of everything we knew, very Channel 5! I watched it whilst ironing, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time!

They need to be solicitors/barristers now. You used to be able to do it without and train purely as a court clerk. It seemed like a massive pita and expensive to do at the time but now I wish I'd just done it.

Very scary to think it ends with the life experiences of the jury.
It's time to employ professional jurors with critical thinking skills.

I think this was a very poor programme with a ' jury' that was not randomly selected ät ask, and it v seems some kind of agenda, although I can't imagine why C4 would have such an agenda. Juries are usually given far more guidance than this. Even though I think there is an argument for at least one professional advisor.

Strange how everybody was wearing the same clothes every day but it was supposedly set over a week

The woman with the pink hair was very annoying. Constantly on the camera but other people never.

Obvioulsy Sophie was lying, no struggle in the kitchen or blood. Didn’t tell 999 she had stabbed him. Glad she got life in real life

Continuity is the reason everyone wore the same clothes every day. Means the footage can be edited as the producers want. Honestly, this is such a flawed production it offers no insights at all imho.

I was on jury service in the summer. In theory, you can discuss it with the other jurors as long as all 12 of you are there and nobody else can hear you. However, when you have a break from the court, you go to a jury room where there are jurors around from other cases or waiting to be put on a case so it would be very unusual to discuss it before you deliberate in the way they did on the programme.
Also, the tables full of lovely Juice, sandwiches and pastries were highly unrealistic. There were only overpriced vending machines serving the most horrendous tea and coffee at the court I was at!

And as PPs have said, the judge in a real court case provides guidance as to relevant points of law and what jurors should consider in coming to a verdict. I would say that the jury system is more effective than these programmes make it look.

Absolutely not!

It's reality TV, channel 4 should be made to make this 100% clear.

Tbh a proper, factual documentary would be more interesting. The actual jurors could be played by actors.

Anyone who has done jury service can see how flawed this programme is.

This is one of the worst things I have ever seen on TV.

I spent my entire career in the Criminal Justice system and can absolutely say this programme is total garbage. Those 'jurors' have clearly been selected for their attitudes, opinions and personalities (I use that word very loosely).

It's an utter disgrace and serves no purpose other than to turn the opinion of the general public against our jury system. I will be lodging a complaint with C4.

@LittleBowSheep I did think they were chosen for their personalities and their back stories. So not exactly a documentary. I still found it interesting but only cos I find people interesting.

Can I ask what about it is garbage? Is it just the fact that the jurors were chosen for their personalties? Surely in real life you could have a bunch of random people anyway that have conflicting views - it’s pot luck?

PPs have mentioned that the judge will in real life provide guidance - how do we know this didn’t happen given the footage was obviously condensed into four episodes?

Interested in what specifically you think was crap!

Can you imagine how this lot behaved in groups projects at school, my goodness

Because it seemed the jurors were selected for their personalities and life experience, deliberately to be it seems, confrontational and intransigent. Manslaughter is not a 'compromise' verdict. It carries a maximum life sentence and they clearly pulled it out of their arses. There was little discussion of what self-defence actually is or really the evidence. The tagine of the programme was that the purpose was to see if the jury system was fit for purpose but ypu can't do that if you don't follow the exact procedure. It gave a false impression of the jury system and possibly could lead to a complete lack of faith in the system. I'm not sure why they would want to discredit the jury system. There are many problems with it but pretending that random loudmouths can just come up with a random verdict because they can't agree is garbage

Plus they were all show boating for the cameras which wouldn't happen in real life