I did jury service a few years ago. It felt like being inducted into to a lynch-mob. They all read the Daily Mail and kept saying things like 'he must have done it - he's in court' and 'he must be guilty because he doesn't look sorry' (the chap was pleading innocent and we'd seen him for all of five minutes before being sent out for legal argument. I didn't endear myself to my fellow jurors by affirming rather than swearing on a holy book, by reading the Guardian, and for pointing out that voting guilty on particular charges because he'd obviously done something wasn't really the point. I felt sorry for one guy though - he shared the bus ride home with the defendants every evening, which seemed a bit odd.
The trouble is, we worked hard as a jury, and the court officials, lawyers and police appeared not to have done so. Important questions weren't asked, important problems weren't raised, and the judge seemed to live in a different world - which is a problem. I don't mind a judge not knowing that Stella is known as 'wifebeater' or (in one defendant's words) 'loopy-juice', but you have to question the worldliness of a man who asks the defence 'What is this Stella?' ('a lager, m'lud') and follows it with 'and in what quantities does one consume this beverage?' (in pint glasses, m'lud).
Was justice done in the cases I sat on? Case one came to an 11-1 verdict of guilty. Guess who voted not guilty? I thought he had committed criminal acts, but that no evidence had been presented. We voted not guilty on the second case because we thought that he probably was guilty but that the prosecution and coppers could have done some fairly easy work to nail him, but didn't.
Anyone else been on (or in front of) a jury?
3 comments:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doqYZ0RC7a0
Just a link you might find interesting, unrelated to this post.
I have done jury duty twice, and both times I have sat in a corridor for several days watching barristers make deals, then been sent home. I was also hauled before magistrates (no jury) along with several million others for refusing to pay the poll tax - in the end my landlord threatened us with eviction unless we paid. The jury is still out on that one.
Anonymous - thanks for the link. If you haven't looked at it, it's a clip for Hannity's poisonously rightwing Fox show - a montage of Obama's first 100 days with the emphasis on the negative.
Zoot - never pay that poll tax bill!
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