Started this week up near Elephant and Castle.First time for me,very interesting but lots of stop and starts.Mind you not complaining with 2 hour lunches sometimes and early finishes.Beats work I suppose. :003:
I spent six weeks at the Old Bailey on jury service about 20 years ago. It was a murder case. What struck me was, it wasn't always about the evidence. It was whether one lawyer could win the argument. Sometimes over a very trivial point. Also when it came to us making up our minds, some of the jurors were happy to find the defendants not guilty. Not because the evidence pointed to that but because they didn't want to send someone to jail. It was like a scene from the "12 Angry Men."
They are all guilty, apart from the innocent ones.
If in doubt find them guilty. Just to protect the innocent public. Remember it could be a member of your family next who becomes a victim.
So if they are locked up they cannot repeat the offence.
Prison is full of innocent people so the inmates tell me.
A general rule is if a defendant smiles when a witness is cross examined by his brief he is guilty.
Is a female lawyer , without her briefs , a solicitor ?
Dr Know .... don't go there. Oh, did I mean that?
Fulham dont have a defence
Quote from: sunburywhite on December 13, 2017, 05:36:06 PM
Fulham dont have a defence
Then Fulham FC are guilty as charged.
In the case in which I was on the jury the prosecution set a clever trap for a young man who said he always took all possible precautions while having sex and said that his girl friend's baby just couldn't be his. He thought he had avoided a maintenance charge but in doing so had admitted having sexual intercourse with a girl under 16. His sentence was 9 months. Honestly.
Good to hear your experiences.Having lunch with a juror on his second week who was on the case of the girl who stabbed her ex lover 36 times and said she killed him in self defence,bit of overkill don't you think.By the way found guilty and given life min twenty years.Can't talk about my case as still going on but not in that league.
Sitting in a jury pool and going through voir dire is an eye opening experience. Makes the whole notion of "a jury of your peers" pretty darn scary. So many inherent biases. Easily swayed by appeals to emotion, to tribalism, to skewed presentation of facts. Some will seize on a single thing, something minor in the grand scheme of things, and it will be their lodestar, everything through that lens. So many people you'd want on a jury find a way to avoid it, leaving a lesser pool.
It seems a lottery as to how you get selected. I've got to 63 and never been called, others have been called several time by then. I checked it out and you can still be called up to 75. Wouldn't mind doing it tbh although I've been told the cases can be pretty unpleasant.
Big mistake I made on my first day..going to the pub at lunch time. Could not stay awake in the afternoon and it can result in a fine for contempt of court (I think).
One case was about a riot started in a pub which resulted in people throwing glasses and bottles all over the place at each other. The jury foreman cracked, throwing away all the beer, must have been a "Courage" pub. :005:
The rules have now changed and what I experienced it now not possible, but way back in 1975 when I lived in Northolt I was called for an interesting three weeks at the Old Bailey
In May I moved to Epsom and in November I was again called for Jury Service, this time at Kingston and Surbiton. Twice in eight months!
I pleaded for exemption,but was told that it was just the luck of the draw.
Surbiton has since closed, but it was boring compared with the Old Bailey.
Served on a jury of a rape case. Not nice but by the end of day 2 had him guilty as charged.
Week and half later we filed into the jury room elected a foreman and he decided not to consider the evidence but to ask us individually "guilty or not guilty".
I was fourth in line, by the time it got to me I was astounded to find I was the first to find him guilty.
Eventually he got off 8 votes to 7 (it was in Scotland).
He got found guilty on one charge of assault when the foreman changed his mind.
As the Judge issued the news to the defendant the prosecuting lawyer leapt to feet and demanded a custodial sentance for the assault charge DUE TO THE DEFENDANTS PREVIOUS RECORD OF ASSAULTS AGAINST WOMEN. Cue many red faces in the jury box.
Poor girl who had bravely given evidence against him and suffered 2 days of cross examination by the defence lawyer broke down badly.
Could not do anything about the verdict then and the Judge could not jail him on the assault.
Hope I never have to serve again.
