What I learnt from Jury Duty - Part 1.

Thursday, 27 May 2021

Aside from my dubious secret skills, I also really enjoy some things which most other people hate with a passion, including putting together flatpack furniture, eating burnt toast (yum), and I've always wanted to serve on a Jury.   Not just because Judge Judy and her judgemental ways is my hero and I secretly want to be her, but I've also been curious about how it all works.

We've been back in Tassie for 14 years (gosh!) and I think I've been called up to jury duty two previous times since we've been back.  Both times I was in the middle of a hectic project which I definitely couldn't leave for an indeterminate amount of time so I got excused. This time my project with my current job was winding down so I figured I was in finally a position to live my dream and serve on a Jury, so rather than send in an excuse, I told my employer I was going to be away for at least a day, and I fronted up at the Supreme Court of Tasmania. Unfortunately (well fortunately for me), by the time Jury Duty actually rolled around I actually had a new job that was just starting up, so suddenly the timing went from great, to not great at all, but it was too late to back out.

I have actually had Jury Duty once before in Sydney. I hated my job at the time so much I couldn't think of a better way to avoid it than say an 18 month police corruption case so I was delighted to be summonsed. On the appointed date I tuned up all ready to dispense justice (over a very long period of time) only to discover that even if you are called up you have to have your number pulled out of a hat from all the assembled jurors in order to get onto an actual case.  The Sydney jury selection area was as large as  an international departure lounge but without the shops. Me and the two hundred or so other people sat around for half a day until they did the 2nd round of lotto for an actual case. My number didn't get pulled out so I had to go back to work and I wasn't called in again.

In Tasmania it looked like they only had about 60 potential jurors for the case that was starting on the day I started my 3 weeks of Jury service.  I was feeling lucky and sure enough, on the very first case, I was called into the Jury room as about Juror number 8.  Once the 12 were assembled, the defence council threw off a few old looking people, while the prosecution threw off quite a young looking person. A few suitably aged jurors were called in to replace them and we were ready.  The judge then briefed us all and told us this case looked likely to last 2 or 3 days.  Given the jury profile you can maybe guess what the case involved.  

From the moment we started I felt a little bit disappointed about the nature of the case. The whole process was still interesting but I wasn't particularly passionate about the crime the accused had been charged with.  I didn't really care whether they were guilty or not, and I was frankly annoyed that money was spent to pursue the case in the Supreme Court.  Nevertheless I was mentally prepared to apply the law and see it through, but another Jury member felt so strongly that they couldn't convict anyone for this crime that halfway through the first day of evidence they asked to be excused from the case. The judge allowed this (after a lot of grumbling) and after some further discussion between the judge and both counsels, we were told to proceed with 11 jurors. This was a great relief as I feared we'd get a new juror and we'd have to listen to the evidence presented so far all over again.  At lunchtime we were released for 90 minutes which was quite handy as my old work was just a few blocks away, so I returned to the office to make a toasted sandwich and rearrange all my meetings for the next few days and let everyone know where I was going to be. With that sorted I headed back down to the court ready for the afternoon session.

In the first twist of quite a few of my jury service, as soon as we got back into court after lunch we were told that we'd apparently heard about some 'compromised' evidence and we all had to be dismissed.  The jurors who hadn't been selected for take 1 were called back the next day, and from them a new jury and new trial began.  I noticed that the case ended up taking almost a week - I'm glad things turned out as they did, as the case I ended up on was much more interesting and satisfying.