Recently I did what I believed to be my civic duty and served on a jury. I had been called twice before but had declined because of my occupation but this time, as I'd retired, I thought it might be an interesting experience. I checked the jury list every day to see if I was required to attend the following day and after a week it was finally my turn. I was herded into a large room with other potential jurors and gradually large groups were taken away. Those left behind were given no explanation of what was happening and what we were waiting for as we whiled away an hour watching the overhead TV or reading magazines provided. At last it was my turn to be taken to the court for empanelling. Our names were read out and the Defence barrister and Prosecutor decided whether to allow each person to be sworn in. My name was called and there was no objection so I found myself on a trial with 11 other jurors. The trial was not a pleasant experience and dragged on for three days. There was a lot of traipsing back and forth from court to jury room. When the trial concluded, we had to deliberate on our verdict and that was an interesting social experiment as there were many different personalities who had different viewpoints on the trial. We had to make our decision on the evidence presented and that included the word of the defendant and the complainant. So for the most part we had to decide who was telling the truth. We were unable to make a decision by late evening so then were herded off to a motel for the night. As we were in deliberation mode, there was no contact with the outside world except through our bailiff, who was very nice and looked after us well. The next day we returned to the jury room to make our final decision. In the court room we gave our verdict and were discharged. I went to the public gallery to hear what happened next. I wanted to see it through. The defendant was duly sentenced.
I found the whole experience emotionally exhausting and something I never want to repeat. My case was comparatively mild to many you read about in the papers and I feel for the jurors on those, but I still found the process traumatic and took me a couple of weeks to stop thinking about it. I was happy to return home after that terrible week. Jurors are not supposed to discuss the case except with their GP, and I did. I'm feeling better about it now but I never want to be in the situation again where my decision will affect someone else's life. I don't want that responsibility. It is too heavy.
