Jury Service: Things I Wish I'd Known

[Derry Alli]

1 hour ago, Dons_1988 said:

What’s the chances once you’re in a ballot? 

About 1 in 5.

[NotThePars]

17 hours ago, tamthebam said:

Jurors are picked from the electoral register which doesn't have ages on it hence 90 year olds getting picked.

Clerks of Court pick jurors on the principle of w**k, w**k, good guy, w**k

There's a big catch up programme after Covid so you'll get your turn if you live in Edinburgh, Midlothian, East Lothian, Glasgow, West Lothian, Aberdeen as these are the main catchment areas for the High Court as well as the local Sheriff Courts and they're burning through jurors. If you want to avoid jury service move to a place with a shitty wee court e.g. Campbeltown.

Just for @Shandon Par there is provision in the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act for illness or death of a juror once picked..

Scottish Criminal juries have 15 jurors but 12 if it's a Civil Jury although these don't usually go ahead.

Rehabilitation of Offenders Act applies @Busta Nut so it depends what you(r friend) did and how long ago it was 

A juror in the High Court did time for googling an accused a few years ago. You get warned by the Sheriff/Judge not to do such things.

Due to possessing background knowledge I'm permanently excused jury service. GIRFUY!

 

 

I thought I would be exempt when I worked in the courts but apparently not! Which feels a bit wild as it wouldn't have been impossible to get additional info if I was so inclined.

[ICTChris]

Regarding wearing suits in court

 

[GordonS]

17 hours ago, MEADOWXI said:

Called once, about 10 years ago, nightmare of a case. Guy was up for two rapes. After hearing all the evidence were then instructed he had to be guilty/guilty or not guilty/ not guilty. Guilty/Not Guilty not allowed. Were not allowed to find him guilty of raping one woman and not raping the other, to do with corroboration. As the cases were brought together they had to corroborate each other. Ended up back in front of the judge to get it explained to whole jury a 2nd time while deliberately. 

He definitely did one so I was for just going guilty/guilty. Others on jury were more other way, if he didn't do one tough he would be not guilty. Ended up cleared of the rapes but done for all the assaults on the women. Was lively arguments but fucking ridiculous.

Food was good though, in Aberdeen and took over round to nice wee Italian (La Lombardo) for a two course meal every lunchtime.

Sounds like the Moorov doctine. I take it there was something in the way the two rapes happened that was similar? Moorov is a way around the difficulties of there often being a lack of evidence of sexual assaults - similarities between separate alleged offences can corroborate each other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorov_v_HM_Advocate

When it was taught to us it included the hypothetical example of the rapist shouting, before the attack, "Izzy Whizzy, let's get busy!" That's kinda memorable.

In your case it sounds like if you thought he did one then it was safe to presume he did the other?

There's increasing pressure on the Scottish Government to scrap or alter the law of corroboration because of the difficulties in successfully prosecuting sexual offences.

15 hours ago, tamthebam said:

"We've picked 15 P&Bers. Red Dot for Guilty, Green Dot for Not Guilty"

 

15 Red Dots later as TTB goes down for life for bad pun posting

Imagine you're wrongfully prosecuted with a serious charge and you get the 8 biggest zoomers on P&B on your jury...

[hk blues]

4 hours ago, GordonS said:

There's increasing pressure on the Scottish Government to scrap or alter the law of corroboration because of the difficulties in successfully prosecuting sexual offences.

 

Just a thought - if the corroboration process is difficult, why do they prosecute multiple cases using it?  Wouldn't they be better trying each case on its own merits?  Sure, more expensive and time consuming but isn't justice the priority? 

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

6 hours ago, GordonS said:

 

Imagine you're wrongfully prosecuted with a serious charge and you get the 8 biggest zoomers on P&B on your jury...

I wouldn't worry mate don't think you're allowed to be the accused and on the jury so I'm sure you'll be fine 

[Fullerene]

18 minutes ago, Genuine Hibs Fan said:

I wouldn't worry mate don't think you're allowed to be the accused and on the jury so I'm sure you'll be fine 

You are probably not allowed to be the judge and the accused either so that is covered too.

[Karpaty Lviv]

On 18/08/2021 at 19:19, BFTD said:

Is it a genuine thing that people can turn up and act the c**t to get out of jury duty? Like, tell the judge you're massively prejudiced against people of the same race/religion/transport preference/sexual orientation as the accused?

The only time I’ve been cited was for a very serious rape case involving family members, and the judge asked the jury after the names were called out if any of them felt they couldn’t give an impartial verdict due to the gravity of the charges. They all said they were fine to go ahead so I dunno if they’d have been excused if they said no. I’m not sure I would have went ahead if I was picked.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

17 hours ago, Dons_1988 said:

What’s the chances once you’re in a ballot? 

Depends. 

We taking Swan Lake or more Nutcracker here?

[Dons_1988]

3 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

Depends. 

We taking Swan Lake or more Nutcracker here?

Wasn’t ready for that level of humour this morning. You’ve rattled me. 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

4 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

Wasn’t ready for that level of humour this morning. You’ve rattled me. 

Eyes on the prize, m9. Eyes on the prize. 

[eez-eh]

I got called up last year for the first time. I went the first morning and there were about 40 of us sitting in an unventilated waiting room in the basement like sardines for two hours before the defendant pled guilty.

Got sent away and asked to turn up the next day again. This time there was actually a trial going ahead so we had the pleasure of sitting in the gallery of a courtroom while we waited again. Someone accused of running about doolally with a knife was the gist of it. I didn’t get picked in the ballot and the rest of us were discharged after that so I never got to sample the Michelin star cuisine. No idea how the trial went after that point.

It got me a couple of mornings out of work if nothing else. I wouldn’t actually mind doing it as long as the trial wasn’t about anything grim. But I can’t imagine anything worse than getting picked for a rape case or an abuse case. That would scar you for life.

[GordonS]

8 hours ago, hk blues said:

Just a thought - if the corroboration process is difficult, why do they prosecute multiple cases using it?  Wouldn't they be better trying each case on its own merits?  Sure, more expensive and time consuming but isn't justice the priority? 

It would be vastly more costly and time consuming to prosecute each charge individually. It also would lead to a lot of guilty people not getting convicted, because you can't know about previous convictions but a jury could use some context in these cases where corroboration is impossible. In your case the prosecution presumably believed that each case on its own lacked corroboration, but the similarities between them made them believable.

As we were taught it, if three women who don't know each other go to the police separately and make allegations against the same man that, before he raped them he shouted "Izzy Whizzy, let's get busy", it's very strong evidence that all three happened - it would be the greatest coincidence in the history of the world otherwise - but on their own there's no corroboration. 

The Salmond case was a Moorov prosecution - for the most part the only evidence of the alleged events was the testimony of the witnesses, but the incidents they described had strong similarities. We'll never know why the jury found as they did, but part of the defence case was that, as the witnesses had communicated before going to the police, their testimony could not be trusted. I'm not going to comment on that case but as a wider principle that's a dangerous argument. There's no question it undermines the application of Moorov though.

[Cyclizine]

On 19/08/2021 at 00:07, GordonS said:

The sister of a good friend of mine lost her faith in humanity as a result of being on a jury for a sexual offences case at the High Court in Edinburgh. That's not an exaggeration. She was as sickened by her fellow jurors as by the accused. She couldn't believe how many were nothing but lazy, ignorant, prejudiced arseholes. About half of them made up their mind on the first day and spent the rest of the trial bitching about how long it was taking.

Something to think about if you're not an arsehole and you get called up for the High Court - if you dodge it, what kind of person will get your place?

I've been called up once, 29 years ago, so I'm long overdue a summons.

After reading statements like this I often think getting rid of juries and having an inquisitorial system of investigating judges and magistrates like most of Europe would be fairer. It removes the "who can afford the best Advocate" issue as well and all that forced courtroom drama.

On 19/08/2021 at 00:14, Left Back said:

Why wouldn’t that come before a jury in Scotland?  I was on a jury a few weeks ago where the alleged crime was basically possession of a knife in a public place without proper reason.  I can’t remember the exact term that was used but that’s what the defendant was accused of.

You can't pick a jury trial in Scotland like you can do in England, so a summary offence could be dealt with by a Sheriff sitting alone, depends on the circumstances.

[Mark Connolly]

On 19/08/2021 at 09:26, Ludo*1 said:

I've been called up twice. First time, everyone was dismissed about 15 minutes into waiting so never even made it into the court room. Second was during the last lockdown just there so was in the Odeon in Dundee and it was on behalf of Perth Sheriff Court. I was on the reserve list so got to hear the juicy details (it wasn't juicy. It sounded absolute pish and a waste of time) and was then sent home when it was confirmed I wouldn't be needed.

When I got picked at the High Court in Glasgow, I got flashbacks to school, as I was either last or second last to be picked. I went and sat in the jury box, and could see the smug look on the face of a guy in the juror pool who thought he had dodged the bullet. He was significantly less smug when Her Ladyship punted them all to another court where half the potential jurors hadn't shown up. He was positively seething when he headed in the jurors' lunchroom next to ours a couple of hours later.

I don't know if this is a P&B trait, but I also had a case where corroboration was required, and where the female members of the jury were absolute c***s when discussing the evidence of the female witnesses.

[GordonS]

1 hour ago, Cyclizine said:

After reading statements like this I often think getting rid of juries and having an inquisitorial system of investigating judges and magistrates like most of Europe would be fairer. It removes the "who can afford the best Advocate" issue as well and all that forced courtroom drama.

I dunno, I did French Law as an elective and I think each system has its strengths and weaknesses without either inherently being better. A friend of mine was utterly screwed by a judge who was obviously ableist, prejudiced and an authoritarian asshole. He seemed to believe or disbelieve witnesses entirely based on their accent. She looked him up of Facebook after the case had finished and found his son, who is gay and was lamenting his father's homophobia. Judges are probably at least as prone to being prejudiced as the rest of us, but on top of that they're overwhelmingly male, white and from a privileged social background. At least juries are typical people.

The main problem with an inquisitorial system is that it gives a lot of power to the state. The French see the state as an extension of the people, or they used to, while we see the state as something the people need to be protected from. They also believe that there is one version of the truth and the purpose of the trial is to find out what it is, while we believe that it's more realistic to put up two versions of the facts and let the better one win.

It's really fascinating seeing how different societies deal with the same problems, it reveals a lot about them.

[Lichtie78]

Was supposed to have jury duty today, but I never read the letter properly at the time and never confirmed my attendance online. Tried phoning the helpline number given several times today, and emailing, but no answer given. Are they going to lock me up and throw away the key?

[Bert Raccoon]

7 minutes ago, Lichtie78 said:

Was supposed to have jury duty today, but I never read the letter properly at the time and never confirmed my attendance online. Tried phoning the helpline number given several times today, and emailing, but no answer given. Are they going to lock me up and throw away the key?

Yes 

[Sergeant Wilson]

10 minutes ago, Lichtie78 said:

Was supposed to have jury duty today, but I never read the letter properly at the time and never confirmed my attendance online. Tried phoning the helpline number given several times today, and emailing, but no answer given. Are they going to lock me up and throw away the key?

We can but hope.

[Tony Ferrino]

27 minutes ago, Lichtie78 said:

Was supposed to have jury duty today, but I never read the letter properly at the time and never confirmed my attendance online. Tried phoning the helpline number given several times today, and emailing, but no answer given. Are they going to lock me up and throw away the key?

I've never heard of a film called 11 Angry men. Contempt of court at least.