Jury Service - Day Five

It was snowing quite heavily this morning when I got up so I had a slip-slidey walk to the station. I managed to make it without falling on my bum which quite pleased me. :o)

Fairly quickly, the majority of the jury was gathered together so we warmed up with a hot drink, discussed who would like to be our foreman and made small talk whilst waiting to be called back in.

Unfortunately one of our number had been unavoidably delayed so the Judge took the decision to carry on without him which quite surprised me - so I learnt something today. :o)

We heard the closing argument - well presented by the defence counsel, I thought. The judge directed us on various points of law and we retired to consider our verdict. However, it was not going to be as easy as perhaps some of us had thought.

The previous case, after we all put forward our points, we fairly quickly came to a unanimous verdict. Today, however, didn't go as smoothly. The group dynamics were obviously different as people had difficulty with the concept of letting everyone express their own view before opening it up for debate. At times, the discussions were quite heated and even became personal.

In a sense, it showed that we all took our responsibility very seriously and that we were determined to come to the right decision. But, it also meant that it was emotionally very draining.

I was glad to get home this evening, put my tunes on (Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff" seems to adequately express my mood at present) and have a huge cup of hot chocolate.

I have been put on stand-by status which means that I am not required to report back in next week but I may be contacted to go on a case if they run out of jurors. So my blog-within-a-blog was shorter than expected and I will be back at work next week. After today's case I'm quite happy but part of me is disappointed as it has been a very educational and sociable experience.

Case Dismissed.