Musings from a courtroom

They say that jurors fall into two camps; those who thrive from the start, and those who enjoy

themselves eventually. There is, however, a third camp they don’t talk about. Those who

don’t—and continue to not—want to be there. I fell into this third camp.

A jury summons letter isn’t what most teenagers envision waiting for them on the kitchen

table when they arrive home. Randomly chosen from the electoral register, anyone over the

age of 18 is eligible to be picked. I didn’t know anyone who’d done jury duty, apart from

maybe a second cousin once removed, given my mother remembered correctly. My dad was

jealous, my friends were curious, and I was genuinely concerned that I might have to

rusticate if they didn’t let me move my court dates. Generally, the idea of having to do ‘your

civic duty’ doesn’t really cross one’s mind at 18; It feels too close to ‘adulting’.

Responsibility was for after graduation, and I had better things to do instead of wasting two

(or more) weeks away inside a court room.

 

 

Legally obligated to attend, dare I risk a court appointment myself, I managed to put my duty

off until March. In the meantime, I maintained hopes that nobody in the vicinity of my rural

hometown would commit any crimes. Inevitably, this wish went unfulfilled. When I arrived

at court I was greeted with a full body and bag search, then told to go to the jurors’ room, a

space remarkably similar to a doctor’s waiting area. I quickly discovered that waiting was a

big part of being a juror.

 

 

The courtroom, when we finally saw it, was a disappointing magnolia-painted box with

wooden benches and no windows. They had brought in about 18 jurors, only 12 of whom

would be chosen for the case, which meant I had a good chance of being dismissed. The

selection process was entirely constituted by the writing of our names on slips of paper that

were then pulled out of a box. No joke. Friends had told me stories of people they’d known

who turned up to court in inappropriate outfits or pretended to be mad in order to get

dismissed. I briefly debated my chances with these strategies, but upon seeing the rather

comical jury-choosing system it became apparent that the only way out would be if I knew

any of the people involved in the case. Unfortunately, I knew no one, and my name ended up

being called second to last—so close, yet so far. The unchosen jurors were dismissed, and the

trial began. Our case would end up lasting the full two weeks we were asked to reserve.

 

 

I’d like to preface the rest of this article by stating that there is a lot I cannot say. I’m

prohibited from divulging the details of the case or what happened in the deliberation room.

This will not be another 12 Angry Men.

 

 

The defendant was in the dock the entire time. It was only after the twelve of us were chosen

that we learnt the nature of the alleged crime. I could feel each of the jurors holding their

breath the moment that the word ‘rape’ was uttered. Something like tax fraud or even murder

is so much simpler for a juror than rape, a crime famous for its difficulty to prove. It was the

worst-case scenario of cases to get.

 

 

As a young woman of a similar age to the victim, I’ve grown up in a world trying to

dismantle the sexist attitudes surrounding rape. I took for granted that what happened wasn’t the victims fault; it wasn’t because of what she was wearing or how much she had drunk. If

she was nice to a stranger, it didn’t mean she owed him sex. How many of us on a night out

have let a man down gently out of fear of aggression? Tried to get away from a pushy guy in

a subtle way? Balanced men’s egos against our own safety? I expected others to express the

same attitudes, to defend a vulnerable woman taken advantage of by a man while merely

walking home at night. But the modern feminist discourse surrounding rape seemed to have

no place in the law. I was shocked to hear phrases such as ‘she’s lying because she’s

embarrassed’, ‘she could have left if she wanted to’, and ‘she had one too many drinks’

uttered by female lawyers. Even the defendant was not stopped from verbally slandering his

accuser when taking the stand. I now understand why so many women don’t go to court over

rape, don’t even report it—if you want to get justice, you have to be prepared to get abused

for a second time.

 

 

The gravity of the situation was, however, cushioned by the immense boredom, and at times

ridiculousness, of being a juror. What ensued was two weeks of waiting, watching CCTV

footage, and having document after document read aloud to us. Over half the time was spent

waiting in the jurors’ room (I got through about 8 hours of lectures) or trying not to fall asleep

in the dingy courtroom whilst being shown the same footage for the third time in a row. One

of the first rules of rhetoric is to say something three times if you want people to remember it,

a device wholeheartedly adopted by lawyers, it seems. It was like being back in school,

sitting in a classroom for hours on end, in a lesson you were forced to take to make up credit.

As an impatient person who used to regularly miss school because I could ‘do more by

myself,’ the inefficiency of the court was excruciating. At the end of the case, the Judge

remarked how pleased he was that our case had only taken six months to make it to court. I

had spent the entire time shocked that it had taken so long—we were sitting in the spring

hearing about events that had taken place the previous autumn. This wasn’t wholly surprising.

Each day, we left about half an hour early, as we had hit a ‘good time’ to pause, and it became

commonplace to start late every morning. One time, I drove my usual hour to court only to be

told we weren’t needed that day. In a way, I was grateful for the overwhelming frustration I

felt, as it was better than being affected by the evidence given in court.

 

 

At the end of the two weeks, the prosecution and defence both finished, we jurors went into

the ‘deliberation room’. With our laptops and phones locked away, we were officially cut off

from communication with anyone other than ourselves until we came to a verdict. While I’m

now able to be marginally more open about the nature of the case, I will never be allowed to

disclose what went on in the deliberation room. For me, this was the most difficult part,

where the boredom, frustration, and responsibility of being a juror were all mixed into one

boiling pot, ready to explode.

 

 

Proving someone guilty of rape is not as simple as it may seem. Since the Sexual Offences

Act 2003, the crime is broken down into four parts: a) whether penetration took place; b)

whether it was consensual; c) whether the defendant reasonably believed that it was

consensual; and d) whether this belief was reasonable in the circumstances. When there is no

concrete evidence for a lack of consent, it is up to the jury to ascertain whether she said ‘no’,

and whether the defendant could have reasonably believed, given whatever circumstances,

that she had consented. Opinions soon boil down to stances on consent and the dynamics

between men and women in sexual contexts, which I quickly learnt varied across ages,

genders, and cultural backgrounds in ways I didn’t expect. Beliefs reinforced over decades do

not suddenly dissolve after five hours in a locked room, and disagreement only makes the

stubborn stronger.

 

 

Announcing the verdict to the court was one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life.

The silent anticipation as we walked back into the room was a heavy reminder that we had a

man’s life in our hands. The weight of responsibility made it all suddenly seem very real; it

wasn’t just a problem we had to solve anymore. Watching someone physically break down in

front of you, knowing that their entire life had collapsed because of a decision you made,

isn’t an experience I would wish on anyone. In that moment, no matter the defendant, you are

the guilty one, the harbinger of pain on another person. This sense of compliance I felt then

has never really gone away; there is always a ‘what if’ in the back of my mind, a worry that

we chose wrong; the fear that an innocent man is in jail because of a decision we made in a

little room, whilst snacking on a Tesco meal deal.

 

 

It’s strange to be forced to have such responsibility, unable to speak about it, and then

restricted even afterwards in what you can share. In a day and age where one is encouraged to

speak to someone you trust if something is worrying you, feeling like you’re completely

alone is suffocating. You hear stories on the news of juries breaking down at videos they’re

shown, the graphic details they’re told, the nature of the cases sometimes so severe that

they’re excused from ever serving on a jury again. I’m grateful that the evidence given during

my case wasn’t as graphic as it could have been, but you never know the full extent of the

crime until you’re already in it.

 

 

The slow and tedious process, the monotony of each day, and the comedic elements of many

of the exchanges in court, saved me. The gravity of the situation was lost in the frustration,

the people reduced to characters in a story we were told again and again. It didn’t feel real

until the final moments, and by then it was already over. The extremes of life are cushioned

by the tedium in between and, I now realize, jury duty is no different.

 

Words by Antonia Rogers. Image via Picryl.