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.