[Closed] Jury Service. Experiences please.

Turned up, waited half a day, name didn't come out of the ballot, went home.
Same again a few days later.
The trials I could have ended up doing were 2-3 day each.

You've more chance of not doing jury service than doing it, such is the size of the pool of jurors they want to pick from.

You get to see how inefficient the justice service is 🙂

I had two cases, pretty interesting experience really.

In trial 2 the (scouse) defendant fell asleep in the dock on verdict delivery day. The judge was not amused.

A ten stretch..... The do-gooding b****rds!

I had a really interesting case that lasted about 3.5 weeks including 2.5 days of deliberation. A guy accused of money laundering, selling planes to drug traffickers. It was great and now I know all about why certain planes are better for drug running than others should I pursue that line of employment (I'm not planning to, seems far too much like hard work). There's a fair amount of sitting around involved so take a good book, but plenty of getting sent home early as well so you could well be getting plenty of time to ride. I gather that most experiences weren't as interesting as mine though.

My partner did it. Had a very nasty case, she was in tears almost every day when she came home.

Did it years ago. All I can say is take a good book to read for all the sitting around you'll be doing ime.

I did a vat fraud case, took 6 weeks, so tedious!

n trial 2 the (scouse) defendant fell asleep in the dock on verdict delivery day. The judge was not amused.

And the signifigance of the defendent being scouse is....?? 😕 🙄

two weeks on. Had four days waiting about then a 3 day trial (theft), then a few more days waiting about.

Take a book. Or 10.

Done it 4 times now,I must be a really good judge of character 😉

IME,it was a real insight to another world,a world that I knew existed,but very interesting when you see it up close.

Being the spokesperson for the jury was a bit scary on one of them.

My aunt a nightmare, months long incredibly boring thing, I can't remember exactly what it was but it sounded like Waiting For Godot: The Director's Cut.

And the signifigance of the defendent being scouse is....??

.........its very rare??

A good experience and as fasthaggis said, a real insight.

Take a good book though as there is a lot of waiting around and in Bristol, they would only reimburse your bus fare and not any car parking charges.

So, load the kindle up, hope they have WIFI, get the bikes and kit ready for quick change and ride out if / when I don't get picked.

What about dress code?

The Wife says the Banksy t-shirt isn't suitable. 🙄

The County Court is walkable for me. 10 minutes or so.

My mum did it and got to meet 2 premier league footballers.

I found it really interesting ,when we were actually in court - had an attempted murder - shooting. 😯
There is a load of waiting about, early finishes etc. Take sarnies - Don't count on the court canteen to be up to much.
Then after two weeks ,due to the Police/prosecution cocking something up the case was thrown out and sent for re trial!
With regards to riding your bike , I deferred mine to winter for just that reason ,I didn't want to be cooped up for two weeks mid summer.
re dress code -first day , I was quite smart , then when I saw everyone else it was smart casual. No-one can see your jeans anyway.
Oh - and they do warn you if a trial is going to be very , very long , I was selected for a high profile abuse case ( not in Sunderland) and due to childcare I was excused.

What I found uncomfortable was they didn't tell you what important legal definitions were until after you'd heard all the evidence so I sat there for 4 days wondering how on earth I was going to make a judgement.

My two weeks of jury service consisted of:
Day 1. A lecture on the structure of the system and how jurors are selected for each trial.
About three hours waiting to see if I was in the relevant pool for the court session. Lunch. Selected for a trial and a couple of hours in the court. Case of assault, it was interesting but saddening because of the personalities involved.
Day 2: Two more hours of evidence then a summing up. Sent away for deliberation. Had some lunch. About 2 hrs of discussion then verdict delivered. We were asked if we wished to stay for sentencing which happened in the same session-not sure if this is usual. I did. All wrapped up by about 4.00pm. Told to phone in and see if required the next day.
Day 3: Asked back in and after about an hour selected for pool again. Hung around for nearly 3 hours waiting for trial to start. Had lunch. We were actually gathering to go into court for the selection and at this point the defendant then pleaded guilty. We were sent home and asked to phone for the next day.
Day 4: phoned and was I told would not be required again that week, told to phone on Friday to see if required. Did so and I was told no longer needed so jury service ended.

I was glad I did it, some of the people in another pool on the first day were selected for a murder trial that lasted a few weeks. It really is pot luck. Oh, take a good book and an iPod
Edit: Donald- since the case I heard hinged on whether the assault was premediated/deliberate or an act whist drunk - the injury was admitted- these definitions were clearly explained at the start. I would have found it more difficult if this had not been the case.

I have always wanted to do it.

My name finally came up, but I was not yet a UK citizen, so had to decline.

I hope it comes up again. So fingers crossed someone in the system is reading this...

I've never done it, though my sister had her jury duty summons on her 18th birthday!

I did jury service at the Old Bailey some years ago. Had a bit of waiting around for the first day and it's basically sitting around in the canteen waiting to be called. Lucky enough I was picked in the ballot for the second day and had a really interesting case which was like something out of a Guy Ritchie film (Lock Stock or Snatch that is).

Started of as a basic rape case where a big, burly Scotsman imposed himself on a frail, young girl from Thailand. Turns out she was a prostitute being run by a gang that the Scotsman was a part of and for some reason (never explained) they had taking a dislike to him and were trying to fit him up.

It was very amusing watching the defence lawyer ripping the prosecution's case to shreds as fact after fact was revealed over about five days. Mr Big (the gang's leader) had done a bunk and the prosecuation's case fell apart and a not guilty verdict came in.

It also turns out that the defendant was wanted for several other unassociated charges and he was arrested again straight away after the trial. The rape case was just something else they were trying to get him on and in my opinion should never have come to court. Total waste of time and money which seems to be all too typical of our justice system I'm afraid. Another thing, I was selected by the other jurors to be the foreman of the jury which was also amusing.

I think I was down for a two week stint but they let us go after that trial but I'm guessing you could be sitting around for a few days if you don't get picked. Alternatively you could get a really juicy trial which goes on for months!

Keep an eye out for your colleagues in the jury ... watch out for Miss Marples and Sherlocks.

Once into the jury room my lot wanted to discuss and dissect every little detail of a ridiculous case that should have never been brought IMO... 5 mins of this and I ask....

"Hold on with all these details, shouldn't we have a show of hands whether the defendant is guilty?

"Oh we can't do that!" one old girl said,

"Why not?" I replied, "I don't think he is. Anyone else?"

10 other hands went up

"There we go, job done, lets return the verdict"

If I'd been biking then, I would have got out for a nice afternoon. 😀

Got sent home days 1 & 2 (not selected).

Selected for a trial Wednesday, where there were opening remarks then adjourned until the next day. Trial lasted until Friday morning, judge got massively pissed off with prosecution being unable to work his videos of the CCTV which was quite funny.

Deliberated until lunch, had a result fairly quickly - but not so quick as we were able to get on another trial - released to not attend second week.

Felt sorry for the defendant actually, he was a bouncer who had chatted up a girl in the bar who subsequently accused him of sexually assaulting her in the bar. The assault was supposed to have taken place out of sight of the CCTV, but you could plainly see he went from one shot to another without moving (4x screen with constant timemarkers) so it was completely made up.

The witnesses who were backing her up were also joke. Not sure how the CPS thought they would ever get a conviction...

I've done it twice!

Both times were disappointing. Lots of sitting around, seeing poor process and administration continued to impact on my views on public sector wastage, and the jury was so committed on wanting to believe the good in people and not judge a case on objective evidence that I found the whole process rubbish

If I had a choice between going to magistrates court or a crown court I'd pick the latter on the basis that it's very difficult to get a jury to convict someone - they can't seem to separate making a decision on evidence from actually punishing someone (jury does the former, judge does the latter)

it's very difficult to get a jury to convict someone - they can't seem to separate making a decision on evidence from actually punishing someone (jury does the former, judge does the latter)

Yeah I agree. I had a couple of women on my jury who basically didn't like the look of the defendant and just wanted him to be guilty despite all the evidence to the contrary. Everyone else on the jury could see how ridiculous the case was but we had quite a job to convince these two women. We basically had to go over all the evidence piece by piece and re-run the trial just for their benefit.

After several hours the last one holding out changed her vote because she was fed up with all the discussion and just wanted to go home! Hardly the best basis for a judgement I'd say but it just goes to show also how these things can work.

worst experience of my life, case was a family member fiddling with his 2 young family members, i found it harrowing so goodness knows how the victims feel, i'll admit there were tears in my eyes after the two victims video evidence

prosecuting barrister was excellent, scared the bejeebus out of me, if i had any notion of being a criminal before it has gone from me completely now, trial lasted 8 days

we gave a unanimous decision

2 1/2 weeks, aged 21

Bloke with mental health issues living in an "open" home was befriended by a group (2 couples and another bloke)whose house he used to walk past on his trip into town.
One bank holiday weekend they enticed him into their house, and tortured him to death over three days. Buried him in the back garden. Four verdicts of murder, one of manslaughter due to diminished responsibility.
We were all excused jury service for life. No doubts about the guilt of nay of the parties, just needed to determine the responsibility and pre-determination.
Looking back on it (30+ years ago) I think if I had been older at the time then it would have left me needing counselling, but at the time, and I now feel ashamed about this, it seemed unreal, and rather thrilling.

As an aside, a good mate is a criminal barrister- awful job, but somebody has to do it I guess.

Take books ,lots of waiting , don't get pissed off with the waiting it is normally for a very good reason.
Take food court canteens are a) rubbish though good fish and chips today and b) closing due to budget cuts.
wear smart casual you can get done for inappropriate slogan t shirts but generally people wear their ordinary clothes , you are not the one on trial. take layers lots of courts have rubbish broken heating/air conditioning.

Take an open mind both as to the process your fellow jurors and the case ,

Courts and justice would not work and would be very different with out jurys so Ta .

Forgive the Advocates who cant work the technology.

Had one

Lasted 4 days - Assault with intent to rape, was very interesting but the case hinged on a technicality of whether the accused was correctly cautioned when the victim had done a drive by identification from the back of a police car.

It got thrown out as the arresting police officer was unable to explain his actions and kept changing his story on the stand.

Still, very interesting but disappointing we couldn't see it through to its conclusion

yep done it, great it was too, put away a scumbag burglar, thanks to a dog finding his trace from the house within 5 minutes of the phone call and finding him in a nearby street, without the dog their wouldn't have been a case

we found him guilty, on a majority vote (had 2 real god botherers in who couldn't see the bad in anyone)

only disclosed AFTER the verdict that the scummy prick had been in jail before for burglary too

was a good feeling knowing at least one scum was off the streets 8)

he got 4 years jail

I found it really interesting, there is a lot of waiting around and time wasting though.

Had a harrowing case,lasted 5 weeks, 4 days deliberating, the worst kind of murder thats all I will say.still makes me shudder!

Did it about ten years ago, two weeks into my first proper job out of uni. Nearly ended up on a fraud case that lasted 3 months!

I got a really interesting case lasting 4 days in the end. Theft case, both barristers were rubbish and seemed very unprepared. Judge was amazing though, made sure it was a fair case presented from both sides and ended up doing most of the interviewing of witnesses himself. Dished out a few stern words to the barristers at times
Deliberations took a while, the elected foreman was a tool who happened to have worn a nice blazer to court. Myself and very sharp lady ended up getting everyone to discuss the evidence over again and picked up on a glaring error in the defences time line that meant she had to have done it. We realised the prosecuting barrister had missed this and the judge had spotted it and was steering us to find it.
Unanimous verdict, found out later that she got a suspended sentence and garnished wages so happy with that outcome as those who were robbed will have been repaid

As allthepies said, it makes you realise how inefficient the whole bloody system is!

Done it once, interesting to see how the system works but lots of hanging about. Got selected the first day, a Polish guy accused of assault who required an interpreter. We'd heard from a couple of witnesses and things were getting interesting, broke for lunch and came back to be dismissed as the trial was being postponed. Turned out the interpreter had been putting her own spin on events rather than translating exactly what the defendant was saying. Wasn't selected again

Agree with other on here regarding the hanging around, but the flip side is that if you are interested in the judicial process then jury service is an amazing experience. I was picked as head juror and had the unenviable task of reading out the guilty verdict. Everyone looked at one another when the defence barrister turned to the judge and said 'in light of my clients previous 16 convictions for drug dealing ...'

I enjoyed it so much that I am hoping I'll be asked again. Just wish I had done law at uni now instead of bloody chemistry!

As kuco said take a book because the waiting around is mind numbing . I was at preston crown court for 2 weeks and only got selected on the 2nd thursday .

Workmate of mine did it a few years ago, he was'nt the sharpest tool in the box. When he got back to work we asked him how it all went, "You could tell he was guilty as soon as you saw him", came the reply, and guilty they found him 😕
I just hope I'm not up before that lot if I ever get in trouble.

Been summonsed 3 times!! In Scotland, England and Wales!!

First time I got out of it as I was sitting my finals at uni.

Second time I sat and twiddled my thumbs for the first week! Eventually ended up on a jury on the Wedsnesday of the second week, for 2 hours, the Defendant decided to change his plea!

Third time I was excused again since I'd just moved job & home by 200 miles! The electoral register hadn't caught up with my change of address!

Conclusion, take a few books!

I've been called up twice and neither time selected to be on a jury. This is because bith times they needed people for cases of between 1 and 3 motnths and I said I could not do that due to work commitments. Other friends / relatives have been called up and have done a couple of shorter cases within their 1-2 week slots.

I agreement with some stories above certain friends experiences called intonauestionnthe merit of trial by jury 😯

"You could tell he was guilty as soon as you saw him", came the reply, and guilty they found him

Did one on armed robbery and false imprisonment, with the unusual feature of the accused serving a prison sentence at the time of the crime - he was on weekend release.
And the police were tracking his movements and bugging his phone, and they filmed him on the way to the robbery, buuuut they lost him en route.

Still took two days and an overnight hotel stay to get a majority (not unanimous) verdict. Liverpool crown court - cuz youse never trust der bizzies, lad.

Ro5ey has hit my experiences on the head....watch out for the Miss Marples......

We were sent out on a case that had so many hole in it we were never going to be able to prove that the dependant was definitely guilty, so on the advice of the judge if we were not 100% sure that he was guilty then we have to find him innocent.

However, despite four days of listening to some rather harrowing evidence Miss Marple believed the prosecution had missed a line of questioning and so made a list of further questions that she wanted answers to, these were passed to the judge via the porter, the judge called us back, explained that we had heard [b]all [/b]the available evidence and to make a decision on what we had heard.

Ten minutes later we had reached a not guilty verdict and could go riding.....

Been selected for jury service three times now..
1st time didn't get selected at all
2nd time had a case of buggery between 2 brothers that had happened about 20 years previously, not nice..
3rd time had a stabbing and also a injury caused be careless driving.

As other have said, take a book/big paper/kindle.. Casual dress code, nothing offensive on T shirts etc, jeans are perfectly acceptable.. Not sure about the canteen situation now, they were just closing ours on my last Jury service.

I enjoyed the experience, it was interesting to watch and be part of the process.

I did it once. A murder trial, the accused was from the wrong side of the tracks. At the end of the trial, we entered the jury room and immediately had a vote, 11 guilty and me on my tod voting not guilty. No one wanted to discuss the evidence but I finally managed to get them to agree to discuss it, after doing this for a while, I had the feeling that I made no headway. I agreed that the other 11 should hold a secret ballot and if they all found him guilty, I would acquiesce. Amazingly someone agreed with me. Little by little, we examined the evidence and gradually the other jurors came to agree with my line of thinking, christ there were some angry people in that room, but in the end we got a 12 - 0 not guilty verdict and hopefully an innocent lad got to enjoy the rest his life.

Wow.

You couldn't make it up.

there's got to be a film in that somewhere, mefty

A very good one I should imagine.

EDIT: Might be worth putting on the stage first though.

I was on a jury, probably going on for 10 years ago now. Was a month long trial for attempted murder of a policeman, two accused.
Found guilty, about 30 years each.

Rewarding, fascinating, and depressing, all at the same time really. By far the worst part for me was witnessing the apathy and prejudice by most in the jury room.
Quote from [url= http://www.theguardian.com/law/shortcuts/2013/feb/21/10-things-jurors-need-to-know ]this article[/url] sums it up; "You will witness the best and worst sides of humanity in that room. It will both exhaust and invigorate you."

Judge awarded us a waiver for ten years, so I guess I'm just about eligible again!

I don't remember the waiting around as others describe, was pretty efficient, but lot's of going in and out of the court. But hours sat in court can be hard work.

I was the only juror not to swear in using the Christian oath, (there is a non-religious alternative). Not that it is relevant at all, but it was a very important thing to me at the time.

I did it, and went in to it thinking it'd be 'a laugh'.
Mmm...when the first prosecution witness is the son of the defendant, who then goes on to state that his old man ****ed him up the @rse as a five year...oh boy, grim. Two other charges of being a sexual predator against teenager boys.
Five or six day case.
Yes, an inefficient system.
The cross section of folk on the jury (15, in Scotland) was interesting.
Unfortunately, by the first mid-morning break lots of people had categorically decided the defendant was guilty on very first impressions and were unwilling to listen to anything further and just wanted out of there.
One guy on the jury didn't want to deliberate the charges for more than ten minutes 'as I've had a good tip on the 2.30 at Doncaster and I need to get out of here'.
I ended up as jury spokesperson, largely as I felt the only one confident enough to lead a detailed discussion on some of the points the judge had asked us to consider...and as the guy was going to go down for a decent stretch, I thought we should take it seriously.
Quite an experience stating the verdict - two unanimous and one majority and looking the judge and defendant in the eye at the time. I never did find out how long he went down for, or whether there were other cases against him.
Speaking to a mate after who is a barrister, quite revealing / bizarre that my feedback was the first time he'd really heard feedback from a juror (he wasn't on my case) about the jury experience.
Defending barrister / QC was formidable and charismatic, prosecution dude a totally bumbling unconfident chump.
A great, but at times grim, experience.
Would love to do it again.

As my mate the barrister / QC stated, there was a predictable adjournment at about midday Friday, as all the legal folk were off for lunch / golf / long weekend...

As someone who brings cases to court AND I've been a juror as well I can say that you don't see the other side of the action as a juror and there's a lot of things that happen around cases that are vital and do delay things but can seem frustrating.
Every experience of court rooms I've had now makes me glad to be in this country and have our legal/judicial system. No it's not 100% perfect every time but it really is as good as it's likely to get (maybe could be a bit more efficient but I mean how they use the law).
People who think judges are bumbling fools like you see portrayed in TV sometimes need to go and see a court case, the judges really are quite amazing at how they bring the hearing together and are very good with juries too.

With regards to the deliberation thing, we went through all the key evidence and arguments and discussed in detail how relevant we thought it was. Two and a half days it took but we came to a unanimous not guilty charge. Everyone took it as seriously as you'd hope. There is still some hope for society and justice.