Crown Court, Jury Duty;

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BenzedUP

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Hi guys,

I'm wondering if anybody could give me some advice, I received at letter about 3 weeks ago from Her Majesty's Court Service asking me to attend Jury service..

Has anybody did this Jury Service?

I hear it could last for ages in some case's? and you might also be required to stay over night but they say the court will arrange accommodation.. so I guess it's alright..:rolleyes: :wallbash:

Also they say the court does not have a car park so I do not know where I am going to park my car.. :(

Can anyone give some advice and as much information as possible of what to expect when I go there etc.. Thanks.




Regards,

Joe.
 
I've been selected twice for jury service and managed to avoid attending on both occasions. This was thanks to a letter from my GP stating that I work mainly alone..

My Uncle has attended though and found it to be a cocktail of boredom, intrigue and fear when some of the gang on trial were leering accross the court at the jury.
 
Been called twice - once as a student, when I just sat around for two weeks and didn't hear a single case (may be different now, but back then each defendant had three juror challenges, so the pool was always 12 jurors plus three for each defendant. Names were then drawn by lot, and from what I could see people rarely exercised their veto - so it was perfectly possible to sit there and never hear a case).

Second time was at Snaresbrook, where I did hear a case. When sent out to the jury room whilst the lawyers were talking at one point, my fellow jurors were all up for convicting the guy, despite the fact we had heard only part of the prosecution and none of the defence. We then got called back and told by the judge to give a directed not guilty verdict - the case had fallen apart on a technicality.

I think the jury clerks are reasonable people and they will only put you on a long case if they have no alternative - they seem to ask who can/can't make the commitment. Also most cases do not involve overnight stays, even if the case runs for more than one day (and from what I could see, not many did).

My main piece of advice? Take plenty of stuff to read. The waiting around is excruciatingly boring.
 
Been called once - I was receiving medical treatments at the time for serious illness - told them as much (no letter from GP etc) and they accepted it.
 
Only done it once so far, and on that occasion the trial was so drawn-out (and the offence so harrowing) that all who served on the jury were given a 7-year exemption from being called again.

It's quite interesting to witness the dynamic that emerges amongst the group of jurors. On this trial, two members stood out from day one: a highly opinionated but callow student, who frequently proclaimed how Michael Moore was the most intelligent commentator on modern life (!), and a rotund little businessman (one of those "time is money" types) who nevertheless tried to keep everyone's spirits up by sharing around a different varierty of boiled sweets each day. The rest comprised a mixture of the quietly contemplative and the nonchalantly disaffected.

The trial was nearly cancelled on day two after one of the (disaffected) jurors went awol, citing personal commitments (thought to be childcare). However, the judge decided that as the trial was at such an early stage it could continue (though I can't recall whether the missing juror was replaced or whether we just made do without her).

One of our number proved himself to be a talented artist, and spent much of his time surreptitiously drawing charicatures of the judge, counsels and his fellow jury members, which he only revealed to us after the final summing up. Luckily for him, he'd managed to escape detection during the trial.

As others have said, there tends to be a lot of hanging about, so sometimes you'd arrive at 09.00 only to be told you wouldn't be called until after lunch, while other days would be cut unexpectedly short due to a seemingly random adjournment. In fact, by day four Mr "Time is Money" was ready to spark a mutiny, suggesting that we should all sign a letter to judge complaining at how inefficient the court process was, and how we resented having our time wasted in this way. "If I ran my business like this it would have gone bust years ago." You know the sort of thing... However, his contemptuous idea was met with disdain from some and indifference from others, so he reluctantly dropped it - vowing instead to write to his MP after the trial about how much public money was being wasted in courts every day.

During the jury deliberations, it was clear from the outset that the two most vocal members -Mr Mutiny and his student sidekick - seemed to have reached a verdict on the trial, which they worked hard to reinforce by taking pieces of evidence out of context and making tenuous points, yet most of their reasoning was highly specious.

The problem was that they met with little resistance amongst the other members (groupthink in action), and I could see that there was a great risk that the verdict would simply reflect the view of a very vocal minority. Worse still, I had a suspicion that their main aim was to reach a verdict quickly so that they could just get on with their lives.

Thankfully, due to diligent note-taking (and having paid close attention in the first place), I was able to redress this balance by expounding on a crucial peice of witness evidence that the motormouths had conveniently glossed over, and this finally began to get (some of) the others to engage their brains before determining whose evidence held more water.

One thing everyone was agreed on was that the court ushers do a sterling job for very little reward. Many have been in the service of the courts for most of their working lives, and are extremely dedicated to the cause. We had the same lady for about two-thirds of the trial, and we got to know quite a bit about her life story.
 
I have to say that I understand completely the standpoint of the businessman. As a small business owner myself, I utterly dread the prospect of that envelope ever landing on the door mat.

And I might be able to weasel out of it too, on those very grounds, but that in itself leads to another well-documented problem.
 
Ok, thanks for the advice so far guys, very helpful to me, keep em coming please:):thumb:

Trouble is I will be out of the country at some point next month, more towards the end of the month though, so I am hoping it won't be too long.

btw any advice of what to wear?, lol:cool::rolleyes: Is there a requirement?
 
Practice saying the word 'Guilty', I find it needs a certain gravity for the full effect and I'm sure you would'nt like to get it wrong on the day. ;-)


You will also get REALLY miffed when the little fella in the black gown in front of you keeps saying 'a point of law has arisen', and you get chucked out the Court over and over again!
 
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Ok, thanks for the advice so far guys, very helpful to me, keep em coming please:):thumb:

Trouble is I will be out of the country at some point next month, more towards the end of the month though, so I am hoping it won't be too long.

btw any advice of what to wear?, lol:cool::rolleyes: Is there a requirement?


A "T" shirt saying hang the "ba$*ards".

They may send you home early??
 
I had to serve at the Old Bailey at the end of last year. None of the cases there are short ones and some had been going on for months.

Luckily my case was over in 3.5weeks.

The judge does give a prediction of the length of the case at the start and asks if it will pose problems for anyone. In practice there are very few reasons that you can be excused from sitting on a case which you are allocated (I tried several!). Subsequently found out that the best way of not being allocated a case which runs over the "standard" 2 weeks is to already have a holiday booked for the end of this period. Of course if you were to book this now after having received your notice to sit on the jury you could be on slightly dodgy ground :)
 
You will also get REALLY miffed when the little fella in the black gown in front of you keeps saying 'a point of law has arisen', and you get chucked out the Court over and over again!

Could that be because you haven't presented the case / fact to the CPS properly? Or didn't follow the letter of the law?
 
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Could that be beacuse you haven't presented the case / fact to the CPS properly? Or didn't follow the letter of the law?


Nah, its due to the fact they have a laptop in front of them (well their help behind does) and they search point of law from say 200 years+ past to try and get a mis trial!!

Gotta love this system:crazy:
 
In fact, by day four Mr "Time is Money" was ready to spark a mutiny, suggesting that we should all sign a letter to judge complaining at how inefficient the court process was, and how we resented having our time wasted in this way. "If I ran my business like this it would have gone bust years ago." You know the sort of thing...


During the jury deliberations, it was clear from the outset that the two most vocal members -Mr Mutiny and his student sidekick - seemed to have reached a verdict on the trial, which they worked hard to reinforce by taking pieces of evidence out of context and making tenuous points, yet most of their reasoning was highly specious.


Thankfully, due to diligent note-taking (and having paid close attention in the first place), I was able to redress this balance by expounding on a crucial peice of witness evidence that the motormouths had conveniently glossed over,

You are still talking about Jury Service here, aren't you Mocas... ;) :rolleyes:
 
I've been called up three times but have still not actually served:

First time, 80 odd potential jurors congregate in the court as their names are pulled from a goldfish bowl to serve on trials 1, 2, 3 etc...

"My" trial was cancelled at the last minute as the scrote changed his plea to guilty - no real surprise as he had been caught after jumping over a wall three feet high on one side, twelve on the other...:bannana:
Second time, went throught the goldfish bowl process, wasn't picked - and that was it.

Third time, goldfish bowl, not picked, but told to come back following week. I was notified to telephone to confirm. Did so, advised of delay and told to call the following week.

On the fourth week, still no sign of trial so advised them I required urgent dental treatment. Some wee lassie in the office then excused me!

Meanwhile SWMBO received a notification last December at the height of the bad weather. Initially, she genuinely forgot to respond and the invitation re-emerged in the New Year. We tossed it out with the Xmas cards - had haven't heard a thing since.

All this illustrates the Byzantine bureaucracy of our legal and court system and the monsterous costs in time and money wasted, when some pikey lowlife goes about his chosen career.

Grrrrr...

As far as how to dress - if you don't want to be picked, go in some eccentric clothing - kaftan and fez or top hat and spats...:D
 
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During the jury deliberations

The system creaks badly.

The one pattern that I see from my peers coming back from doing jury service is they end up believing the system is pointless and broken.

Quite the opposite of your experience .

And perhaps there are some others posting on forums about their experience and have applied a Mr XXXXX nockname to you.

My objection is the wastage. I end up paying staff who are attending and the majority (As in over half) end up with the trial being discontinued for some reason - a technicality, change of plea, witnesses not turning up, and so on. Of the others then there seems to be an undue proportion of acquittals (including the stupid 'not proven' verdict we have here).

For self employed and small businesses the cost is disproportionate and having to go through the repeated citations and apply for deferrals for service for critical staff is unpleasant as they seem to get shirtier with each deferral.
 
The system creaks badly.

The one pattern that I see from my peers coming back from doing jury service is they end up believing the system is pointless and broken.

Quite the opposite of your experience .

And perhaps there are some others posting on forums about their experience and have applied a Mr XXXXX nockname to you.

My objection is the wastage. I end up paying staff who are attending and the majority (As in over half) end up with the trial being discontinued for some reason - a technicality, change of plea, witnesses not turning up, and so on. Of the others then there seems to be an undue proportion of acquittals (including the stupid 'not proven' verdict we have here).

For self employed and small businesses the cost is disproportionate and having to go through the repeated citations and apply for deferrals for service for critical staff is unpleasant as they seem to get shirtier with each deferral.


This is true, but potentially unavoidable... We wouldn't want Jurors to consist solely of unemployed people...? Or of any other non-representative group for that matter? Surely the jury selection should be as close to random sampling as possible?
 
You are still talking about Jury Service here, aren't you Mocas... ;) :rolleyes:

Broadly speaking, yes. :confused:

Essentially, I was struck by how easily the outcome could be swayed if one or two vociferous people were allowed to go unchallenged. I presume this must happen all the time.
 

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