After last year's Lordi victory, I'm more than a little curious about this year's contest. Just how many people will copy them to try replicate their feat?
Well, all entries were finally posted to the Eurovision site today, so I took a quick gander. As it turns out, only one country (Switzerland) went all the way down that particular dead end, but there do seem to be far more rock-y entrants this year as a result, which is not a bad thing necessarily. There are, at my count, SIX girly symphonic rock entries, very reminiscent of the like of Lacuna Coil and Evanescence, so I'll get my fill of eye candy at least. Israel are coming in with a very tongue-in-cheek political comedy act, and Denmark's Drama Queen will probably garner quite a few votes for its completely Cabaret feel.
I'll be voting for Georgia, though. I knew that the instant the first few bars of the song played. It may not win - in fact, going by previous contests, I would judge it too good to win, not enough cheese - but it's just so musically fine that I would feel remiss supporting anything else. Sopho (Sofica) Khalvashi has a lovely, lovely voice, and the wonderful tempo contrast in My Story between her melody and the musical counterpoint gives me goosebumps.
But don't take my word for it - listen for yourself! You'll see...
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Delightful Dita
I know it's just not the same as seeing her in person, but it's still a lovely bit of fun.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
As aspirin to my Spring fever
So much for my grand plans to go rambling in the winter sun today. A complete lack of takers for my Colne Valley proposition led to a fairly decent alternative involving Highgate Cemetery and the taking of pictures therein. Unfortunately, in spite of the numerous assurances from the weathermen - or perhaps, indeed, because of them - gray skies predominate, and damp the ardour for nature ambling. I wasn't impatient with the tail end of winter before, but now that my spring sap has been woken, I'm getting antsy for some sun and green. Come on, Spring!
Friday, March 16, 2007
Collecting Double-Takes
Today's xkcd, although immensely funny in itself, has an even funnier tag:
My contribution: sharp knife and roll of bandages. Come play...
Fun game: find a combination of two items that most freaks out the cashier. Winner: pregnancy test and single coat hanger.Bwaaahahahaha!
My contribution: sharp knife and roll of bandages. Come play...
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Another eminently desirable cartoon character
When the Metro first started publishing Nemi, they made a half-hearted effort to put the occasional strip on their site, but I'm pleased to see that they're pulled up their socks since then and are actually hosting all of the published strips now. I've been having a fabulous time going through them all, and as good as they all are, there are some especially pithy encapsulations of :Ah, just read them all. You won't regret it, I guarantee it.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Movie day (reprised)
- Arthur and the Invisibles
- Every bit as enjoyable and appealing as I had hoped. They managed to capture a genuine sincerity and warmth without descending into schmaltz. There were some lovely little snide asides as well as a whole lot of un-saccharine sweetness. The animation was fairly impressive too, with a lot of effort put into facial tweaks that make the characters compelling. I'm seriously considering buying it when the DVD is released, it's that good. Besides, Selenia's just so cute (yes, I have a thing for animated females.)
- The Number 23
- I didn't have great expectations for this, and was pleasantly surprised by the resulting suspense. It wasn't a cheesy horror adaptation at all, but more a variation on the paranoid obsessive genre, closely resembling The Machinist in its handling and subject matter. Jim Carrey was believable enough as both male leads that it took me a little while to figure out he was playing both characters, and the plot was paced well, keeping me hooked and guessing at least until the last 20 minutes, which is pretty impressive in comparison to my normal 'Eureka' time.
- Ghost Rider
- Predictable plot, cheesy dialogue, cheesier posing, and none of that unexpected. I went for the flaming skull dude on a burning bike, and that's what I got, so no complaints.
- The Illusionist
- Probably would have had more of an impact if The Prestige hadn't mined this exact same vein first, but it was well crafted and well presented and Rufus Sewell as the Crown Prince completely stole the show for me, with Paul Giamatti coming a close second, completely eclipsing Edward Norton and Jessica Biel.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Movie day
As I do every once in a while, more often when there's a cascade of cinema I want to see, and occasionally when I have nothing better to do, I'll be at the Cineworld in the Docklands today watching a handful of movies:
14.45 Arthur and the Invisibles - the trailer appealed, what can I say?
16.25 The Number 23 - filler, and hopefully not too tedious
18.10 Ghost Rider - got to catch this at the cinema, as it'll be pants on DVD
20.30 The Illusionist - wasn't going to watch, but it's been getting good reviews
The timing's quite tight, but I'm pretty sure I can make it between them during the adverts! I was hoping to shoehorn The Good Shepherd into that list, but it seems there are no really late shows tonight, so I'll have to keep that for another visit, or wait for the DVD release; I don't think it'll suffer for the change in format.
I'm perfectly happy watching these on my own - sad as that may seem to some - but company is welcome too.
14.45 Arthur and the Invisibles - the trailer appealed, what can I say?
16.25 The Number 23 - filler, and hopefully not too tedious
18.10 Ghost Rider - got to catch this at the cinema, as it'll be pants on DVD
20.30 The Illusionist - wasn't going to watch, but it's been getting good reviews
The timing's quite tight, but I'm pretty sure I can make it between them during the adverts! I was hoping to shoehorn The Good Shepherd into that list, but it seems there are no really late shows tonight, so I'll have to keep that for another visit, or wait for the DVD release; I don't think it'll suffer for the change in format.
I'm perfectly happy watching these on my own - sad as that may seem to some - but company is welcome too.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Jury service - Day 9, and last
Free! I'm free to go back to my normal humdrum life! I can't wait.
It was a close call, actually. Given the number of jurors out at trial, and the number of cases scheduled to start tomorrow (quite unusually, as it is rare for cases to be started on Fridays), the jury manager was seriously considering asking all of us waiting in the jury lounge at 4pm to return tomorrow, to ensure they had enough jurors. She did a little math, and announced that, if 20 people volunteered to return tomorrow, the rest of us could be dismissed completely. You'd be surprised, but there was actually a rush to get to the counter in time to be one of the 20! I hung back, waiting for the mad stampede to subside, then slipped in at the back of the queue to get my expenses verified before the remainder realised that we were released. I never thought I'd be so happy to be returning to work.
I didn't get out completely unscathed, though. I was called to a trial just before lunch this morning. It was a complete departure from the conventional trial by challenge that you'd expect. The Crown's case was unchallenged, and the Defence and trial itself were a formal requirement of due process in the case of an assault and bodily harm charge against a person who was incapable of entering a plea for reasons of mental illness. The judge was quick to explain the nature of the trial, and the variation of its form, as we were not there to deliberate on guilt, but merely to act as impartial confirmation that the acts described had in fact been committed by the Defendant. The oaths and affirmations we made were, therefore, somewhat different to the standard format, as was the process of trial. The Prosecution merely outlined the agreed facts of the case, whereon the Defence established that they were not challenging the evidence. The judge selected a foreman - the person closest to him - and without further ado asked him to speak on the behalf of all of us as to whether we agreed that the Defendant had done the acts that led to the charges being brought. The look of consternation on the foreman's face when asked by the bailiff whether his answer of "yes" to the question "Do you agree that the Defendant did the act in Charge 1?" was the answer of the entire jury was priceless. Fortunately, the judge directed him to look around at the jury and answer in light of our unanimously nodding heads, which simplified things.
It must have been clear from our expressions that some of us - myself, at least - found the whole affair a little hasty and convenient, and the judge picked up on this and reassured us that our presence wasn't merely a rubber stamp affair and was designed especially to prevent exactly that scenario in which 'undesirables' are despatched to mental hospitals without any impartial witnesses to verify the legitimacy of the action. It can't happen very often, though, as our jury usher commented it was the first time he'd seen such a trial, and he's been at Snaresbrook over 13 years. The other jurors, as we were led out, opined that it was all a grand waste of time, but I disagree, if only because it showed me yet another facet to the criminal justice system of which I had been unaware.
It was a close call, actually. Given the number of jurors out at trial, and the number of cases scheduled to start tomorrow (quite unusually, as it is rare for cases to be started on Fridays), the jury manager was seriously considering asking all of us waiting in the jury lounge at 4pm to return tomorrow, to ensure they had enough jurors. She did a little math, and announced that, if 20 people volunteered to return tomorrow, the rest of us could be dismissed completely. You'd be surprised, but there was actually a rush to get to the counter in time to be one of the 20! I hung back, waiting for the mad stampede to subside, then slipped in at the back of the queue to get my expenses verified before the remainder realised that we were released. I never thought I'd be so happy to be returning to work.
I didn't get out completely unscathed, though. I was called to a trial just before lunch this morning. It was a complete departure from the conventional trial by challenge that you'd expect. The Crown's case was unchallenged, and the Defence and trial itself were a formal requirement of due process in the case of an assault and bodily harm charge against a person who was incapable of entering a plea for reasons of mental illness. The judge was quick to explain the nature of the trial, and the variation of its form, as we were not there to deliberate on guilt, but merely to act as impartial confirmation that the acts described had in fact been committed by the Defendant. The oaths and affirmations we made were, therefore, somewhat different to the standard format, as was the process of trial. The Prosecution merely outlined the agreed facts of the case, whereon the Defence established that they were not challenging the evidence. The judge selected a foreman - the person closest to him - and without further ado asked him to speak on the behalf of all of us as to whether we agreed that the Defendant had done the acts that led to the charges being brought. The look of consternation on the foreman's face when asked by the bailiff whether his answer of "yes" to the question "Do you agree that the Defendant did the act in Charge 1?" was the answer of the entire jury was priceless. Fortunately, the judge directed him to look around at the jury and answer in light of our unanimously nodding heads, which simplified things.
It must have been clear from our expressions that some of us - myself, at least - found the whole affair a little hasty and convenient, and the judge picked up on this and reassured us that our presence wasn't merely a rubber stamp affair and was designed especially to prevent exactly that scenario in which 'undesirables' are despatched to mental hospitals without any impartial witnesses to verify the legitimacy of the action. It can't happen very often, though, as our jury usher commented it was the first time he'd seen such a trial, and he's been at Snaresbrook over 13 years. The other jurors, as we were led out, opined that it was all a grand waste of time, but I disagree, if only because it showed me yet another facet to the criminal justice system of which I had been unaware.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Jury service - Day 8
And very nearly my last one, too. Those of us who began jury service last Monday were on the brink of being dismissed completely this afternoon, when the jury manager was informed that a whopping 7 new cases are being introduced tomorrow, and she might just run out of new jurors and have to make inroads on the veterans. So, having dodged a second case since Monday, I may yet find myself involved in a further trial.
So, another reading day, although a little less reading and more talking seemed to be the order of the day. There was another jury out of a rape case, and so we had a fair sized group discussing their thoughts and reactions to very similar scenarios. One interesting difference between our respective ways of handling the deliberation was the choice regarding the assessment of a verdict at the beginning of deliberation. It seems that some juries elect to hold off on counting verdicts until they've gone through the evidence at least once, and others prefer to get a reading on the prevailing mood right at the start. There are, of course, pros and cons for both methods. Finding out that the entire jury is agreed on a verdict at the very beginning can save a lot of wasted time if they had begun deliberating immediately. On the other hand, returning a verdict without deliberation could result in some crucial evidence being overlooked or forgotten. This, I guess, is one of the complaints about the jury system as it exists; it is as inconsistent as the mix of people chosen, so one person's justice is not the same as another's.
On a lighter note, it was decided that, since no direction is given on the choice of a foreman, and there is no way to choose a juror who would be 'best' at the job, as it has to be done right at the start of deliberation, it is as good a criterion as any other to choose the juror with the neatest handwriting. After all, one of the primary roles of the foreman is to pass requests and questions to the judge in writing, so why not make the judge's day just a little easier by making the notes easy on the eye?
Unless I'm selected for a case tomorrow, we've been assured it'll be our last day. So at least one more of these posts will grace my blog.
So, another reading day, although a little less reading and more talking seemed to be the order of the day. There was another jury out of a rape case, and so we had a fair sized group discussing their thoughts and reactions to very similar scenarios. One interesting difference between our respective ways of handling the deliberation was the choice regarding the assessment of a verdict at the beginning of deliberation. It seems that some juries elect to hold off on counting verdicts until they've gone through the evidence at least once, and others prefer to get a reading on the prevailing mood right at the start. There are, of course, pros and cons for both methods. Finding out that the entire jury is agreed on a verdict at the very beginning can save a lot of wasted time if they had begun deliberating immediately. On the other hand, returning a verdict without deliberation could result in some crucial evidence being overlooked or forgotten. This, I guess, is one of the complaints about the jury system as it exists; it is as inconsistent as the mix of people chosen, so one person's justice is not the same as another's.
On a lighter note, it was decided that, since no direction is given on the choice of a foreman, and there is no way to choose a juror who would be 'best' at the job, as it has to be done right at the start of deliberation, it is as good a criterion as any other to choose the juror with the neatest handwriting. After all, one of the primary roles of the foreman is to pass requests and questions to the judge in writing, so why not make the judge's day just a little easier by making the notes easy on the eye?
Unless I'm selected for a case tomorrow, we've been assured it'll be our last day. So at least one more of these posts will grace my blog.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Jury service - Day 7
Reading day. Finished one book, started a second. So good.
While sitting in the lovely, cool, quiet upstairs jury lounge, I overheard the conversation of a few jurors who had just been discharged from their case, which turns out to have been another rape case, and took them about 6 hours to decide on a Guilty verdict. It was fascinating to hear exactly the same discussion on their lips as we had yesterday; how hard everyone had worked to make sure of his guilt, how anxious they had all been about the responsibilty, how little they'd wanted a trial of that nature and how diligently they had applied themselves regardless. It certainly boosts my faith in the general populace an iota that 24 random people all faced with the same stressful task could manage it so well.
While sitting in the lovely, cool, quiet upstairs jury lounge, I overheard the conversation of a few jurors who had just been discharged from their case, which turns out to have been another rape case, and took them about 6 hours to decide on a Guilty verdict. It was fascinating to hear exactly the same discussion on their lips as we had yesterday; how hard everyone had worked to make sure of his guilt, how anxious they had all been about the responsibilty, how little they'd wanted a trial of that nature and how diligently they had applied themselves regardless. It certainly boosts my faith in the general populace an iota that 24 random people all faced with the same stressful task could manage it so well.
Jury service - Day 6
"Have you, the jury, reached verdicts on either or both of the charges laid against the Defendant?"
"Yes."
"On the first charge, of vaginal rape, have you reached a verdict on which at least ten of you are agreed?"
"Yes."
"How do you find the Defendant; guilty, or not guilty?"
"Guilty."
"Was that a unanimous verdict, or a majority verdict?"
"Majority."
"And what was the majority?"
"10 guilty, 2 not guilty."
"So, a majority of 10 to 2?"
"Yes."
"And on the second charge, of oral rape, have you reached a verdict on which at least ten of you are agreed?"
"No."
"Are you likely, with further time, to reach a verdict?"
"No."
"Very well. Given the time taken to reach this point, I will discharge you from reaching a verdict on the second charge. Thank you for your time."
Thus ended 8 hours and 5 minutes of deliberation over 3 days, on top of the 4 days of the trial itself. We were taken back to the jury loungue and re-registered for entry into further cases but, through either good fortune or benevolent planning, none of us were called to a new trial this afternoon, which is just as well, given the general emotional exhaustion on the part of the entire jury. Date rape cases are among the hardest to have to decide, for the obvious reason that it almost always boils down to the word of one person against that of another. You can see why I've been bemoaning my lot.
The charges were brought by a young Latvian girl - Irina Idiyatulina, the Claimant - who had been working in the UK as a part-time waitress for about the previous year. Last summer (18th July, to be precise), she was picked up by a Moldovan immigrant - Oleg Vrabie, the Defendant - that she had met in Stratford a few days before and taken back to the shared house in East Ham in which he had a room. They proceeded to have a few drinks with some of the other tenants, chatting in Russian - the only language they all had in common - and continuing to drink until late in the evening, getting through at least a bottle and a half of Starka in the process. Towards midnight, they ended up in his room on the second floor. A little while later, she was seen to run out of the house with Oleg hot on her heels. Refusing his offers to see her home, she called the police, flagging down a car in the midst of her call to find out where she was to inform the despatch officer. On hearing her allegations, some policeman approached the house, arresting Oleg outside and, given the nature of her story, also all the men resident at the address.
Those are the bare facts of the case. It came to light during the trial that certain additional facts weren't being disputed by either the Defence or the Prosecution; for example, that the DNA of semen found in Irina's vagina was a match for Oleg, and that Irina's blood alcohol level at the time she was picked up by the police was 2.5 times the legal driving limit. Irina was examined by a medical officer, who prepared a body map from her examination showing all bruises and lacerations visible on Irina at the time of the examination, as well as a series of photographs cataloguing the major examples. Irina gave her statement to the police on what is known as an ABE (Achieving Best Evidence) video. A little later, Oleg was questioned by a Project Sapphire officer, and a statement transcribed from this interview. Statements were taken from all the men arrested, all of whom were released except Oleg, as he was the only person specifically named in Irina's statement that the police had found at the address. In addition, photographs were taken of the areas of the house at which the events occurred according to Irina's statement. Later on, additional witness statements were obtained from other tenants at the address.
This is what we had to go on, then. This, and the verbal testimony given in evidence during the trial by the Claimant, the one witness who appeared at trial, the medical officer and the police officer who complied the statement and, in fact, was handling the case and, finally, The Defendant, who gave evidence in spite of there being no legal obligation for him to do so. It would have been impossible to defend him if he had not done so, as we quickly realised as we were led through the evidence, but he could well have declined to give evidence if the Defence felt that the Crown's case was too weak to prosecute him successfully.
Without going through all the highly relevant but dramatically tedious minutiae of the case, it's possible to get a sense of the reasoning the jury accepted to come to the verdict that was given.
The Prosecution opened with Irina, and allowed her to tell her story of the excuse Oleg gave to get her back to the house, the rather surprising inclusion of drinks in his plans for her evening, the deliberate steering of her rather drunk form up to the vicinity of his bedroom, the increasingly violent assault that escalated to strangulation and eventual rape, the subsequent oral rape and then the attempted rape by one of the other men who had been in the garden before she managed to alert the house to her distress, get her things together and get out of the house to call the police. Throughout her evidence, given behind a screen to isolate her from the Defendant and translated between English and Latvian - which slowed things up immensely, as you can imagine - she was consistent and believable, particularly when cross-examined by the Defence. She exhibited genuine surprise when it was suggested that she had been flirting with all the men, kissing Oleg on a number of occasions and even fondling his penis underneath his shorts. Even when confronted by an apparent discrepancy in her account under oath and her original statement, she maintained her version of events without any apparent doubt, and it was then discovered that it was the Defence who had made the mistake, which she had corrected them on. The one witness called not only seemed to corroborate certain telling elements of Irina's account, such as the sounds of a struggle from the room in which Irina would have been and the presence of the second rapist whose identity Irina eventually recalled but who was never found by the police, but she also gave clear signs of being intimidated by the Defendant herself, having to be cajoled by the Prosecution into identifying him by name, preferring to refer to Oleg as 'him' or 'the one' throughout.
By contrast, Oleg's evidence - translated from Russian - was damning. His statement to the police on his arrest was filled with outright lies. He gave a false name to the arresting officer, and it transpires that he is an illegal immigrant who has already been deported once and has managed to find his way back into the country. The name he gave was that of a legal immigrant, who had stressed he was to use it for work purposes only. He strenuously denied that he had had sex with Irina at all, in spite of being reminded that samples would have been taken from both Irina and him, and that both their clothes were in evidence to be examined. He placed himself outside in the garden at the time of the putative second rape, when another of the men arrested had seen him on the second floor dressed in nothing but a towel moments after Irina began screaming. He gave the second assailant's identity as Valiera, which agreed with Irina's statement, but Valiera was never found, and this would pose problems for his defence as the trial approached.
If his statement was the first nail in his coffin, his evidence under oath in court was the rest of the box, the lid, the the hole and a shovel for the dirt. It was absolutely riddled with blatant fibs and fabrications, which gave his Defence pause for grimace on at least one occasion. He conceded that they had consensual sex, in direct contradiction to his statement to the police, and then claimed that he only lied to the police because he didn't understand what they were telling him and was merely trying to get everyone off with as little hassle as possible. This, despite the clear transcript showing that not only was he told the charges against him on three seperate occasions and confirmed that he understood the charges, but he even said "I did not rape her" at one point, showing clear understanding of his situation. He claimed that he had left Irina after they had had sex to have a shower and that he came back to find Nico - one of the other tenants - trying to rape her, and pulled him off her. Given that Valiera had never been apprehended, it seemed to us that he had decided to substitute Nico in his place, as he was known to have been in the house, having been arrested on the night. He told us that he had left the house after Irina had run off to get something to eat and then to go see his girlfriend, but he then went on to explain that he must have lost the sandals he was wearing when he first ran from the police. He had clearly forgotten that the arresting officer's statement was clear on the fact that, when first sighted, Oleg was barefoot. He told us he had pulled on the same shorts and shirt that he had been wearing before getting naked for the consensual sex in his account, but then - and this is where I spotted his Defence wince - he was shown a photo of his room to confirm that the towel he had been wearing was in shot, and he did so and then pointed at a black tangle of clothing in shot and told us that those were the clothes had had been wearing before the sex, obviously thinking this would support his version, completely forgetting that the photographs had been taken after his arrest when, by his own account, he had been wearing those same clothes. His version of events kept changing depending on what he remembered of the evidence presented at trial and the story he had concocted to create doubt in the jurors' minds.
Most telling for me, and the single realisation that swayed me personally from undecided to a Guilty verdict, was this; his account would have us believe, at the same time, that Irina had consented to sex and was sober, rational, calm and awake enough afterwards to discuss having a shower and allowing him to go first so she could take her time afterwards AND that she had lied in her account about knowing that the second rapist was the man called Valiera because she said she was sobbing and too lost to even run away to have noticed who the second rapist was. Either she was aware enough to have had little likelihood of recognising the second rapist beyond any doubt or she was to disconsolate to notice. Their acknowledgement of her inability to be sure of the second rapist's identity was, to me, certain proof that there would have had to have been a reason for her emotional state that could only reasonably be explained by her account.
It seems so simple now that I've been through the deliberation and have laid out all my ducks in a row like that but the truth of the matter is that it takes hours and hours of analysis and questioning and argument and refutation to get to that point and, for 2 of us at least, even all of that wasn't sufficient to be sure of guilt. It was interesting that one of the two - both men, for whatever that means - changed his mind on seeing the Defendant's reaction to the verdict, and was relieved that we had reached a majority in spite of his dissension. Whether that is a coping mechanism to allow him to live with the thought that a man he found innocent is going to prison, or whether he saw something more than the mere resignation that I observed, is impossible to know, I guess.
I have no basis for comparison yet, but I believe that we were a good jury; I don't think that the Defendant could have received a more fair and hard-earned verdict. Everyone looked hard at the evidence, tried hard to avoid speculation, and steered cleared of personal attacks and bullying to sway the others. It was a fascinating exercise, in itself, to see the different approaches and arguments favoured by different people. It was clear when personal bias was playing a significant role in a decision, or when someone's intuitive arrival at their conviction was irrefutable with logical analysis. It was perhaps expected that, with few exceptions, the jurors who began deliberation with a clear verdict in mind that did not change during deliberation were the older individuals, and that those whose initial preference was to express an unwillingness to state a verdict either way were the young among us. Again, it's easy to cite the intransigence of the elderly, and to forget that they have a wealth of experience that sometimes acts as an efficient bullshit filter, which the rest of us have yet to develop, leaving us with plodding logic to reach the same goal. I'd guess it's a mixture of those two elements that gives rise to the behaviour.
That this has been a draining, exhausting, daunting experience for all of us is beyond question. Without exception, we have all been relieved at avoiding another case this afternoon, so soon after being dismissed from the previous one, and we have all lost sleep or weight or concentration during the course of the trial. I value the knowledge I've gained of the process and of human nature under jury conditions, but I still firmly believe I could have learned it all with any case, and I still wish I'd been spared this particular category. I guess only another crack at it will give me an answer, one way or another. I can say with conviction, though, that I'm happy to wait quite a while for that. Meanwhile, I go back to the jury lounge and hope for a nice long read.
Sentence is being passed on 23rd March, and I will append that when it is available.
"Yes."
"On the first charge, of vaginal rape, have you reached a verdict on which at least ten of you are agreed?"
"Yes."
"How do you find the Defendant; guilty, or not guilty?"
"Guilty."
"Was that a unanimous verdict, or a majority verdict?"
"Majority."
"And what was the majority?"
"10 guilty, 2 not guilty."
"So, a majority of 10 to 2?"
"Yes."
"And on the second charge, of oral rape, have you reached a verdict on which at least ten of you are agreed?"
"No."
"Are you likely, with further time, to reach a verdict?"
"No."
"Very well. Given the time taken to reach this point, I will discharge you from reaching a verdict on the second charge. Thank you for your time."
Thus ended 8 hours and 5 minutes of deliberation over 3 days, on top of the 4 days of the trial itself. We were taken back to the jury loungue and re-registered for entry into further cases but, through either good fortune or benevolent planning, none of us were called to a new trial this afternoon, which is just as well, given the general emotional exhaustion on the part of the entire jury. Date rape cases are among the hardest to have to decide, for the obvious reason that it almost always boils down to the word of one person against that of another. You can see why I've been bemoaning my lot.
The charges were brought by a young Latvian girl - Irina Idiyatulina, the Claimant - who had been working in the UK as a part-time waitress for about the previous year. Last summer (18th July, to be precise), she was picked up by a Moldovan immigrant - Oleg Vrabie, the Defendant - that she had met in Stratford a few days before and taken back to the shared house in East Ham in which he had a room. They proceeded to have a few drinks with some of the other tenants, chatting in Russian - the only language they all had in common - and continuing to drink until late in the evening, getting through at least a bottle and a half of Starka in the process. Towards midnight, they ended up in his room on the second floor. A little while later, she was seen to run out of the house with Oleg hot on her heels. Refusing his offers to see her home, she called the police, flagging down a car in the midst of her call to find out where she was to inform the despatch officer. On hearing her allegations, some policeman approached the house, arresting Oleg outside and, given the nature of her story, also all the men resident at the address.
Those are the bare facts of the case. It came to light during the trial that certain additional facts weren't being disputed by either the Defence or the Prosecution; for example, that the DNA of semen found in Irina's vagina was a match for Oleg, and that Irina's blood alcohol level at the time she was picked up by the police was 2.5 times the legal driving limit. Irina was examined by a medical officer, who prepared a body map from her examination showing all bruises and lacerations visible on Irina at the time of the examination, as well as a series of photographs cataloguing the major examples. Irina gave her statement to the police on what is known as an ABE (Achieving Best Evidence) video. A little later, Oleg was questioned by a Project Sapphire officer, and a statement transcribed from this interview. Statements were taken from all the men arrested, all of whom were released except Oleg, as he was the only person specifically named in Irina's statement that the police had found at the address. In addition, photographs were taken of the areas of the house at which the events occurred according to Irina's statement. Later on, additional witness statements were obtained from other tenants at the address.
This is what we had to go on, then. This, and the verbal testimony given in evidence during the trial by the Claimant, the one witness who appeared at trial, the medical officer and the police officer who complied the statement and, in fact, was handling the case and, finally, The Defendant, who gave evidence in spite of there being no legal obligation for him to do so. It would have been impossible to defend him if he had not done so, as we quickly realised as we were led through the evidence, but he could well have declined to give evidence if the Defence felt that the Crown's case was too weak to prosecute him successfully.
Without going through all the highly relevant but dramatically tedious minutiae of the case, it's possible to get a sense of the reasoning the jury accepted to come to the verdict that was given.
The Prosecution opened with Irina, and allowed her to tell her story of the excuse Oleg gave to get her back to the house, the rather surprising inclusion of drinks in his plans for her evening, the deliberate steering of her rather drunk form up to the vicinity of his bedroom, the increasingly violent assault that escalated to strangulation and eventual rape, the subsequent oral rape and then the attempted rape by one of the other men who had been in the garden before she managed to alert the house to her distress, get her things together and get out of the house to call the police. Throughout her evidence, given behind a screen to isolate her from the Defendant and translated between English and Latvian - which slowed things up immensely, as you can imagine - she was consistent and believable, particularly when cross-examined by the Defence. She exhibited genuine surprise when it was suggested that she had been flirting with all the men, kissing Oleg on a number of occasions and even fondling his penis underneath his shorts. Even when confronted by an apparent discrepancy in her account under oath and her original statement, she maintained her version of events without any apparent doubt, and it was then discovered that it was the Defence who had made the mistake, which she had corrected them on. The one witness called not only seemed to corroborate certain telling elements of Irina's account, such as the sounds of a struggle from the room in which Irina would have been and the presence of the second rapist whose identity Irina eventually recalled but who was never found by the police, but she also gave clear signs of being intimidated by the Defendant herself, having to be cajoled by the Prosecution into identifying him by name, preferring to refer to Oleg as 'him' or 'the one' throughout.
By contrast, Oleg's evidence - translated from Russian - was damning. His statement to the police on his arrest was filled with outright lies. He gave a false name to the arresting officer, and it transpires that he is an illegal immigrant who has already been deported once and has managed to find his way back into the country. The name he gave was that of a legal immigrant, who had stressed he was to use it for work purposes only. He strenuously denied that he had had sex with Irina at all, in spite of being reminded that samples would have been taken from both Irina and him, and that both their clothes were in evidence to be examined. He placed himself outside in the garden at the time of the putative second rape, when another of the men arrested had seen him on the second floor dressed in nothing but a towel moments after Irina began screaming. He gave the second assailant's identity as Valiera, which agreed with Irina's statement, but Valiera was never found, and this would pose problems for his defence as the trial approached.
If his statement was the first nail in his coffin, his evidence under oath in court was the rest of the box, the lid, the the hole and a shovel for the dirt. It was absolutely riddled with blatant fibs and fabrications, which gave his Defence pause for grimace on at least one occasion. He conceded that they had consensual sex, in direct contradiction to his statement to the police, and then claimed that he only lied to the police because he didn't understand what they were telling him and was merely trying to get everyone off with as little hassle as possible. This, despite the clear transcript showing that not only was he told the charges against him on three seperate occasions and confirmed that he understood the charges, but he even said "I did not rape her" at one point, showing clear understanding of his situation. He claimed that he had left Irina after they had had sex to have a shower and that he came back to find Nico - one of the other tenants - trying to rape her, and pulled him off her. Given that Valiera had never been apprehended, it seemed to us that he had decided to substitute Nico in his place, as he was known to have been in the house, having been arrested on the night. He told us that he had left the house after Irina had run off to get something to eat and then to go see his girlfriend, but he then went on to explain that he must have lost the sandals he was wearing when he first ran from the police. He had clearly forgotten that the arresting officer's statement was clear on the fact that, when first sighted, Oleg was barefoot. He told us he had pulled on the same shorts and shirt that he had been wearing before getting naked for the consensual sex in his account, but then - and this is where I spotted his Defence wince - he was shown a photo of his room to confirm that the towel he had been wearing was in shot, and he did so and then pointed at a black tangle of clothing in shot and told us that those were the clothes had had been wearing before the sex, obviously thinking this would support his version, completely forgetting that the photographs had been taken after his arrest when, by his own account, he had been wearing those same clothes. His version of events kept changing depending on what he remembered of the evidence presented at trial and the story he had concocted to create doubt in the jurors' minds.
Most telling for me, and the single realisation that swayed me personally from undecided to a Guilty verdict, was this; his account would have us believe, at the same time, that Irina had consented to sex and was sober, rational, calm and awake enough afterwards to discuss having a shower and allowing him to go first so she could take her time afterwards AND that she had lied in her account about knowing that the second rapist was the man called Valiera because she said she was sobbing and too lost to even run away to have noticed who the second rapist was. Either she was aware enough to have had little likelihood of recognising the second rapist beyond any doubt or she was to disconsolate to notice. Their acknowledgement of her inability to be sure of the second rapist's identity was, to me, certain proof that there would have had to have been a reason for her emotional state that could only reasonably be explained by her account.
It seems so simple now that I've been through the deliberation and have laid out all my ducks in a row like that but the truth of the matter is that it takes hours and hours of analysis and questioning and argument and refutation to get to that point and, for 2 of us at least, even all of that wasn't sufficient to be sure of guilt. It was interesting that one of the two - both men, for whatever that means - changed his mind on seeing the Defendant's reaction to the verdict, and was relieved that we had reached a majority in spite of his dissension. Whether that is a coping mechanism to allow him to live with the thought that a man he found innocent is going to prison, or whether he saw something more than the mere resignation that I observed, is impossible to know, I guess.
I have no basis for comparison yet, but I believe that we were a good jury; I don't think that the Defendant could have received a more fair and hard-earned verdict. Everyone looked hard at the evidence, tried hard to avoid speculation, and steered cleared of personal attacks and bullying to sway the others. It was a fascinating exercise, in itself, to see the different approaches and arguments favoured by different people. It was clear when personal bias was playing a significant role in a decision, or when someone's intuitive arrival at their conviction was irrefutable with logical analysis. It was perhaps expected that, with few exceptions, the jurors who began deliberation with a clear verdict in mind that did not change during deliberation were the older individuals, and that those whose initial preference was to express an unwillingness to state a verdict either way were the young among us. Again, it's easy to cite the intransigence of the elderly, and to forget that they have a wealth of experience that sometimes acts as an efficient bullshit filter, which the rest of us have yet to develop, leaving us with plodding logic to reach the same goal. I'd guess it's a mixture of those two elements that gives rise to the behaviour.
That this has been a draining, exhausting, daunting experience for all of us is beyond question. Without exception, we have all been relieved at avoiding another case this afternoon, so soon after being dismissed from the previous one, and we have all lost sleep or weight or concentration during the course of the trial. I value the knowledge I've gained of the process and of human nature under jury conditions, but I still firmly believe I could have learned it all with any case, and I still wish I'd been spared this particular category. I guess only another crack at it will give me an answer, one way or another. I can say with conviction, though, that I'm happy to wait quite a while for that. Meanwhile, I go back to the jury lounge and hope for a nice long read.
Sentence is being passed on 23rd March, and I will append that when it is available.
Saturday, March 03, 2007
They will never take our... oh, wait
Sometimes it better to stop when you're ahead than to keep rolling and risk a natural 00; never so true as when you're Inspiring the troops.
Friday, March 02, 2007
Jury service - Day 5
I'm pretty sure not one of us could have predicted that we'd go into deliberation today and still be at it 7 hours later. After just over 5 hours of discussion (including the hour at the tail end of yesterday's session), we received direction from the judge that a majority verdict of 10-2 would now be acceptable, although we should still try for a unanimous verdict. We couldn't even get to an acceptable majority by the end of the day, though, and are going to have to continue trying on Monday. There is some possibility of getting there, though, so we haven't had to declare a hung jury. Yet. Monday will be the decider, I'm sure.
A rather interesting fact came to light during the morning. We'd had our jury usher changed, and during a break were idly speculating on reasons for the change when one of the jurors piped up to tell us she'd asked for the previous usher to be removed. Out of sheer curiosity, since it wasn't particularly relevant to our deliberations, I asked why, but she refused to explain, as is her right, of course. It wouldn't have been an issue if the new usher were a tenth as efficient as yesterday's, but he's abysmal, and the rest of us can't help feeling a little resentful that we're having to endure his inattention without knowing why. But there you go; jurors can affect a change in the assigned usher. More power to us!
Another glaring flaw in the way the jury is managed lies in the lunch procedure. Because we can't be allowed out into the jury lounge - we would be 'contaminated' in the court parlance - we have to have food brought in. The list of options is insanely meager, though. Four kinds of sandwich, and a selection of crisps and sodas, when the jury canteen serves a cornucopia of hot dishes. What's more, only one out of the 10 of us who elected to order actually got what they'd ordered, the rest having to settle for the sandwiches no sane person willingly eats; egg and cress. Feh. It's seems a little foolish to me to tell a jury that they can take as much time as they need to deliberate and came to a fair verdict when your dis-insentivising them by curtailing their environment so harshly and penalising them for taking longer than a morning to deliberate by withholding a satisfying lunch. If their tactic is to treat us mean and keep us keen, then it's horribly ineffective, because a majority of the jurors have pledged to be more rapid with their verdicts in future to avoid the 'punishment'. I believe it would be more effective to treat the jurors as the indispensable element of the justice system that they're told they are.
Just feed us properly, damn it! Even animals in the zoo get that much!
A rather interesting fact came to light during the morning. We'd had our jury usher changed, and during a break were idly speculating on reasons for the change when one of the jurors piped up to tell us she'd asked for the previous usher to be removed. Out of sheer curiosity, since it wasn't particularly relevant to our deliberations, I asked why, but she refused to explain, as is her right, of course. It wouldn't have been an issue if the new usher were a tenth as efficient as yesterday's, but he's abysmal, and the rest of us can't help feeling a little resentful that we're having to endure his inattention without knowing why. But there you go; jurors can affect a change in the assigned usher. More power to us!
Another glaring flaw in the way the jury is managed lies in the lunch procedure. Because we can't be allowed out into the jury lounge - we would be 'contaminated' in the court parlance - we have to have food brought in. The list of options is insanely meager, though. Four kinds of sandwich, and a selection of crisps and sodas, when the jury canteen serves a cornucopia of hot dishes. What's more, only one out of the 10 of us who elected to order actually got what they'd ordered, the rest having to settle for the sandwiches no sane person willingly eats; egg and cress. Feh. It's seems a little foolish to me to tell a jury that they can take as much time as they need to deliberate and came to a fair verdict when your dis-insentivising them by curtailing their environment so harshly and penalising them for taking longer than a morning to deliberate by withholding a satisfying lunch. If their tactic is to treat us mean and keep us keen, then it's horribly ineffective, because a majority of the jurors have pledged to be more rapid with their verdicts in future to avoid the 'punishment'. I believe it would be more effective to treat the jurors as the indispensable element of the justice system that they're told they are.
Just feed us properly, damn it! Even animals in the zoo get that much!
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Jury service - Day 4
And a long day it's been, too. It's been the first day in which we've arrived at the normal start of a court day and left at the very end; in fact, we went over time a little before being dismissed.
It's crunch time. The case has now been heard, the evidence is in, and we've been sent out to deliberate. Our official title right now is the 'overnight jury' (as opposed to the 'sitting jury' while we were hearing the case). There was some concern when the time reached 4.30pm that we would be held until a verdict was reached, but fortunately this is not the case, so I can lie awake anxiously in my own bed tonight. Yay.
The nature of the case is such that there is no guarantee we will reach a verdict tomorrow, but I'm thinking that it's unlikely that we'll be granted a truly unlimited time to decide, in spite of the court's assurances to the contrary, so we will most probably finish with this trial tomorrow in one form or another.
Irrespective of that, I've been stung by a real flaw in the way that the jury's participation in the trial process is handled. It seems that the court officials are so inured to the process that they've forgotten that most jurors will never have been in court before and are, therefore, a little overawed by the environment and less likely to use their right of questioning. Also, as the trial unfolds, although you may have questions as a juror that you want to see answered, you have to assume that the barristers for both parties will address all aspects of the facts of the case in due course, so you hold off on your questions until it can be reasonably assumed that they're not going to be answered as a result of the barristers' examinations. Well, that's what I thought anyway, and so was alarmed and annoyed to be told, once all evidence had been heard, and before the councils were to address us with their closing arguments, that the list of unanswered questions I had was too late to receive answers. The trial was over, and the fact that we'd not yet had closing arguments was irrelevant. This, in spite of the fact that my questions were acknowledged by the judge herself to be pertinent and overlooked; she could do nothing about obtaining answers.
It seems obvious to me that a simple request to the jury to submit in writing any unanswered questions that they had accrued during the evidence of each witness to the judge before each witness is released would go a long way to ensuring that the jury has all the available facts before they begin deliberation. That's exactly what I intend to ask the Criminal Justice System. Their response won't do anything to assist in this case, though, and I feel a little betrayed that I'm now not in an ideal situation to assess guilt in this case as a result of the oversight and will have to live with what may be a less than certain verdict. What's more, the verdict is going to have an enormous impact on the people involved in the case, and they're not getting the best shot at the truth as a result of the oversight. And that's killing me.
This is why I didn't want a case of this nature. I hate being right all the damn time.
It's crunch time. The case has now been heard, the evidence is in, and we've been sent out to deliberate. Our official title right now is the 'overnight jury' (as opposed to the 'sitting jury' while we were hearing the case). There was some concern when the time reached 4.30pm that we would be held until a verdict was reached, but fortunately this is not the case, so I can lie awake anxiously in my own bed tonight. Yay.
The nature of the case is such that there is no guarantee we will reach a verdict tomorrow, but I'm thinking that it's unlikely that we'll be granted a truly unlimited time to decide, in spite of the court's assurances to the contrary, so we will most probably finish with this trial tomorrow in one form or another.
Irrespective of that, I've been stung by a real flaw in the way that the jury's participation in the trial process is handled. It seems that the court officials are so inured to the process that they've forgotten that most jurors will never have been in court before and are, therefore, a little overawed by the environment and less likely to use their right of questioning. Also, as the trial unfolds, although you may have questions as a juror that you want to see answered, you have to assume that the barristers for both parties will address all aspects of the facts of the case in due course, so you hold off on your questions until it can be reasonably assumed that they're not going to be answered as a result of the barristers' examinations. Well, that's what I thought anyway, and so was alarmed and annoyed to be told, once all evidence had been heard, and before the councils were to address us with their closing arguments, that the list of unanswered questions I had was too late to receive answers. The trial was over, and the fact that we'd not yet had closing arguments was irrelevant. This, in spite of the fact that my questions were acknowledged by the judge herself to be pertinent and overlooked; she could do nothing about obtaining answers.
It seems obvious to me that a simple request to the jury to submit in writing any unanswered questions that they had accrued during the evidence of each witness to the judge before each witness is released would go a long way to ensuring that the jury has all the available facts before they begin deliberation. That's exactly what I intend to ask the Criminal Justice System. Their response won't do anything to assist in this case, though, and I feel a little betrayed that I'm now not in an ideal situation to assess guilt in this case as a result of the oversight and will have to live with what may be a less than certain verdict. What's more, the verdict is going to have an enormous impact on the people involved in the case, and they're not getting the best shot at the truth as a result of the oversight. And that's killing me.
This is why I didn't want a case of this nature. I hate being right all the damn time.
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