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.