Justice shuffles along

Today Her Royal Highness the queen required that I attend the high court to carry out my civic duty as a juror. None of your petty crimes at the sheriff court for me. Nope I've been asked to be a juror twice now and on both occasions it's the high court.

Those not from the UK may be puzzled. Scotland has district courts, sheriff courts and the high court. A district or Justice of the peace court will deal with anti-social behaviour and small time crime (shop lifting, drunk and disorderly, etc). The Sheriff Court deals with most civil and criminal cases and covers a wide range. Cases that can't be resolved by a sheriff court are pushed to the high court on appeal. The high court deal with serious crime. If it's murder, rape or serious drug offences they won't even bother with the Sheriff court they'll go directly to the high. Picture painted?

Now as you would imagine such serious criminals require serious surroundings and the high court that I attended wouldn't have been a let down. Not sure if it's Georgian or Victorian but we are talking about proper oak panelling and brass rails, plaster mouldings of impressive lions and mythical creatures, huge pillared arches and 30-40 foot high ceilings. Yep if your about to see freedom for one last time then the high court is an impressive last view.

So anyway I thought a little blog about the days proceedings might paint a picture for those not from the UK and give those within the UK some idea what to expect.

Not sure if it had anything to do with the guy in Cumbria last week who decided to start shooting Innocent bystanders for no reason but the 'threat level' in the courts was medium or intermediate or something along those lines. That meant that the court had security staff on the doors and walk through metal detectors set up. (Americans would probably be surprised to find out that metal detectors in public buildings still aren't standard in the UK). Caught unawares I hastily started emptying the, not insubstantial, contents of my jacket into the tray being thrust toward me. Keys, phone, headache pills, headphones, wallet, bank cards and loose change all live in a mans pockets and that's before you even think about the belt etc. Imagine how safe and comforted I felt when the security guy beckoned me through the scanner before I'd even finished emptying my pockets. I tried to object but he ushered me through. The machine beeped. I prepared for the search. Instead he just gave me my stuff and told me to carry on. What was the point?

I was then shown to the canteen where, I'd been warned, Jurors mingled with witnesses and the families and friends of those on trial. Today however there appeared to be only fellow jurors. There was one of the guys I'd have laid bets on as being 'the accused' but it turns out he was a fellow juror. Good to know I'm impartial and way beyond stereotyping though. Here we waited to be called at 9.30 when it was all due to start. At 9.30 we continued to wait until 9.45.

At 9.45 a woman came and asked aloud if jurors would follow her. This was the point that confirmed to me that everyone in the canteen was a juror. I resisted the urge to tell the dodgy looking guy that looked like the accused that it was jurors only. He'd figure it out.

We were led through a maze of corridors past the front door (which is not used despite being the best entrance for folk to find) to a courtroom. My citation (invite to attend) said court three. This court had a name as well as a number but neither of them began or ended with three. In fact the number wasn't even divisable by three. I noticed a couple of others checking their slips (with the huge number three in bold on the top left) and deciding to say nothing so I decided it must be OK. Anyway this was the impressive room I described at the start and I wanted a look.

The big dodgy guy was now standing next to me muttering under his breath about how he could do without this sh*t today. When I say under his breath it was audible to most of the folk around me who were studiously trying not to look his (or by association my)way.

Where I'm from a high court jury is made up of fifteen folk rather than the standard twelve. The logic? An odd number must give you a decision one way or the other. Quite logical I think although it would probably work just as well with eleven or thirteen members. In order to get fifteen members there are somewhere between thirty and fifty folk called to attend. The process is then to pick fifteen from a hat (or a goldfish bowl or cookie jar in this case), read the details of the case to them, allow them to consider whether or not they are able to act as juror in the case, allow the prosecution to object to any of them and then, provided the fifteen are OK, the others can go home. Given that it's 9.45 and all of us are in court how long do you think that process takes?

For five to ten minutes nothing happened. There were three people, two in gowns, in the court bit and fifty of us in the public gallery. The three folk however were as if completely oblivious to us. Maybe that's what they mean by 'Justice is blind'. They just completely refused to acknowledge our presence. They also seemed increibly busy doing nothing as their monitors were switched off and there was nobody about.

Then a small accountant like gentleman (imagine an affable and sprightly version of scrooge)swept in from the a door at the left behind the judges area. He moved quickly down to swig from a waiting coffee cup in front of the judges bench before, almost without pause, moving to the rear of the court where we were sat. Before anyone could throw anything at him or rugby tackle him to the ground he was right in front of us in the gallery with a practised, comforting,smile and fixed gaze. After a pause he introduced himself by surname only.

It seems odd to be introduced to someone with no prefix or position. 'Good Morning I'm Smith'. Think about it...Mr Smith, fine, John Smith, fine, Smith the Clerk, maybe but, Smith? (His name wasn't Smith by the way, that's just an example).

Smith was the clerk of court and possibly one of the best spoken practitioners of the English Language I have ever come across. Without the affectations of an actor he simply had pronunciation that I, as a trainer, would kill for. Smith spent at least twenty minutes explaining to us what would happen in court. Smith also got to tantalise us with an overview of what the case would involve. Smith then left us and went through a door that he left slightly ajar allowing us to see him fold pieces of paper into the cookie jar. Smith had the next three or four days of our lives in his hands.

What then passed was a very long period of awkward silence (apart from the guy beside me muttering about what a b*st*rd it was that he had to do this. I'm sure he should have been the accused). During the awkward silence the three gowned figures seemed to be very busy doing nothing. One stapled pieces of paper and brought them to lay in a pile on a lectern near us. He then went up to the judges bit and sat for a few minutes as if trying it for size and made sure the mike was pointing the right way. (This seemed to be achieved by twisting it away from the perfectly good direction it was pointing and then twisting it back to exactly the position it started from). He then came back down to the lectern and moved the papers to a desk. He then left the room for about five minutes before returning to pick the papers up and move them back to the lectern. Then he came back and moved them back to his desk again. Another lady appeared to be writing furiously and never turned round in the whole time I was there. Didn't they know there would be a case today? Didn't they know what that case was? Couldn't they have already had names drawn from the names that signed in that morning? Don't the three gowned ones that were there have an office out of sight where they don't have to pretend to be busy? Does Smith even have a first name?

At 10.50 suddenly everyone turned up. The judge, the accused, the police etc. The fifteen jurors were then called by name and sat one by one at the jury bench. The judge then called a recess for a break (for the jury only, those not chosen were asked to stay put). That was as exciting as it got.

Smith swept back across to explain to us that we would be required for another ten minutes or so. Those chosen as Jurors were being given the chance to state any reason they may have for not being able to serve, choose there lunch and go to toilet before things could resume. That 'ten minutes' lasted thirty by my watch before the jury returned. Fortunately at that point those of us not chosen to serve were released. It was just after 11.30.

What a criminal waste of peoples time. There needs to be a jury and therefor jury selection but it does not need to last all morning. In fact it should be over and done by ten o-clock at the latest so people can get back to what they are doing if not chosen. For me it was just boring but a break from work. For others however who were self employed or had parenting duties it seemed a bit much. The guy beside me probably still had crimes to commit and a court to attend as 'the accused'.

As for the case.... Given the number of charges read out and the nature of them....it would take something pretty unexpected to come up for the guy to be innocent I'm afraid. Wonder if he was as impressed by the architecture as I was?

Speak soon

T