I have only served on a jury once. That was enough. I went in with positive expectations. I thought I might be quite good at weighing things up, sorting out who was guilty and who was innocent. I had a lot of experience of that as a teacher sorting out the students disputes.
I was wrong.
It was a very frustrating experience.
To start with the whole adversarial system sucks. It’s nothing to do with getting to the truth. It’s all about winning and losing. Both sides try to twist the evidence to suit them. Truth goes begging.
I was on a rape trial. It was quite complex. The jury was mixed. There were five women and seven men. Having gone through it all we were nearly all convinced that the accused was innocent (including all the women). But that was not the verdict. We believed that sex was probably consensual and then they’d had a row. However, the soldier accused had made the plea that sex had not taken place. Forensics said it had. The judge directed us to come up with a guilty verdict if we thought sex had taken place. That was cut and dried. The fact that it was probably consensual was not a factor. We all felt that an innocent man had gone down.
What was worrying was that two of the jurors took no interest at all. They just wanted to get home. Another refused to believe anything that was said. He said that police always lied. Half the jury got totally confused about the case and were completely lost. They just went along with everybody else.
I was talking to one of the jury who had been on another case. A guy was accused of slashing people in a crowded football terrace with a Stanley knife. The jury had deliberated for two hours and in the end given him benefit of the doubt only to then hear his list of previous – a lengthy list of slashing people with Stanley knives.
One of my colleagues was on a lengthy murder trial. She made meticulous notes and told me that most of the jury didn’t have a clue as to what had gone on. The police had CCTV evidence of the accused arriving and leaving after the murder. They had finger prints in the flat. It was cut and dried. The murder was gang related. The accused was a hitman brought in from London.
But a witness said that she thought she might have seen the accused in London on the day but wasn’t quite sure.
Two of the jury stated that they would not find guilty no matter what. One said that all the evidence had been contrived by the police. One said that he couldn’t have done it because a witness had seen him in London on the day. The hitman was found not guilty.
My experience of jury service is that an innocent man was found guilty and two guilty men were found innocent. A number of the jury were too stupid to understand what was going on. Others, on principle, would never believe the police or convict. Then you have prejudice to take into account.
I’d be happier with an intelligent experienced judge! The jury system sucks. It’s a lottery!!
