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Fred · 11-25-2009, 08:34 AM

I did it earlier on this year and had a fairly mixed reaction to the whole thing. I was lucky in that I was called to a new trial almost immediately after each previous one had finished, whilst there were some people who spent the entire 10 days sitting around on their arses, occasionally getting called down to a trial only to find out they weren't going to be part of the sitting jury. As a result, in the 11 days I ended up having to stay there for I sat on a total of 4 trials and was rarely left to my own devices.

I was also lucky in that the majority of those 4 cases were either interesting or (dare it be said) fairly entertaining. I had a GBH case, an attempted burglary one with one of the most fantastically implausible excuses I've ever heard, a child porn one which was fucking grim but fairly eye-opening and an offer to supply weed to an undercover policeman, again with a fantastic excuse. The GBH one was the only one that felt like a complete waste of my time, in that the incident took place 2 years ago, the CCTV footage showed absolutely nothing whatsoever and there was no way in which anyone could possibly have been convinced of the defendant's guilt based on the evidence we were shown.

As far as why it was frustrating is concerned, whilst not wanting to come across as snobbish or anything along those lines, it was quite a scary thought to look at some of the people called to service and think that they were going to be responsible for completely changing the course of someone's life. A couple of the other jurors there at the same time as me seriously, seriously struggled to take in some fairly basic facts about the cases, and others amongst them had some incredibly questionable views and biases. I would happily say the majority were far from being like that, but those few people did ring some alarm bells. It all felt fairly medieval at times.

As well as that, the bureaucracy of the whole affair, whilst understandably necessary, got incredibly tedious. Even though I was never really waiting around to be called (not for more than a few hours at any one time, that is), the amount of time actually spent in the courtroom per day is somewhat nonsensical. We'd be trooping in and out the whole time while some matter of law was cleared up, and the number of delays to the start of the trials was absurd.

That aside, I'm glad I did it, if only to have got it out of the way for at least another 2 years! Bits of it were definitely interesting, and there is a certain satisfaction to the knowledge that you've taken part in the justice system.

EDIT: Oh, and what ESP Griffyn said about the repetition of the evidence is incredibly true, too. The type of juror I mentioned earlier probably benefited from having such monotonous facts drilled into their brains quite so rigorously, but I think the rest of us all got fairly sick of it after a while.

11-25-2009, 08:34 AM	#9
Fred (aka David Lee Roth) Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: London or Bristol, UK. Posts: 1,429 Thanked: 25	I did it earlier on this year and had a fairly mixed reaction to the whole thing. I was lucky in that I was called to a new trial almost immediately after each previous one had finished, whilst there were some people who spent the entire 10 days sitting around on their arses, occasionally getting called down to a trial only to find out they weren't going to be part of the sitting jury. As a result, in the 11 days I ended up having to stay there for I sat on a total of 4 trials and was rarely left to my own devices. I was also lucky in that the majority of those 4 cases were either interesting or (dare it be said) fairly entertaining. I had a GBH case, an attempted burglary one with one of the most fantastically implausible excuses I've ever heard, a child porn one which was fucking grim but fairly eye-opening and an offer to supply weed to an undercover policeman, again with a fantastic excuse. The GBH one was the only one that felt like a complete waste of my time, in that the incident took place 2 years ago, the CCTV footage showed absolutely nothing whatsoever and there was no way in which anyone could possibly have been convinced of the defendant's guilt based on the evidence we were shown. As far as why it was frustrating is concerned, whilst not wanting to come across as snobbish or anything along those lines, it was quite a scary thought to look at some of the people called to service and think that they were going to be responsible for completely changing the course of someone's life. A couple of the other jurors there at the same time as me seriously, seriously struggled to take in some fairly basic facts about the cases, and others amongst them had some incredibly questionable views and biases. I would happily say the majority were far from being like that, but those few people did ring some alarm bells. It all felt fairly medieval at times. As well as that, the bureaucracy of the whole affair, whilst understandably necessary, got incredibly tedious. Even though I was never really waiting around to be called (not for more than a few hours at any one time, that is), the amount of time actually spent in the courtroom per day is somewhat nonsensical. We'd be trooping in and out the whole time while some matter of law was cleared up, and the number of delays to the start of the trials was absurd. That aside, I'm glad I did it, if only to have got it out of the way for at least another 2 years! Bits of it were definitely interesting, and there is a certain satisfaction to the knowledge that you've taken part in the justice system. EDIT: Oh, and what ESP Griffyn said about the repetition of the evidence is incredibly true, too. The type of juror I mentioned earlier probably benefited from having such monotonous facts drilled into their brains quite so rigorously, but I think the rest of us all got fairly sick of it after a while.