26th June 2024
As long as you're between the ages of 18 and 75 and your name appears on the electoral roll you can be selected to perform jury service in the UK. Some people get selected multiple times, while others will go their entire life without getting called. This piece is based on my experience performing jury service a single time. I hope it's a useful guide to anyone that hasn't served before.
When you're first summoned for jury service you'll be sent a YouTube video that explains some of the process and the people you'll see in the courtroom. What it doesn't explain is what roles those people play in the process. Some of them are clear, but there are others whose roles are less obvious. Thankfully there's a page on the government website that outlines what the duties of each person in court are.
The first day, when introductions are made and forms are completed, may be the only time you see everyone that has been summoned together. Some people will be assigned to a case and others will be sent home with the possibility of being called back another day. If you're not needed on any day you will be sent home. Someone at the court will e-mail you each afternoon to let you know if you need to attend court the next day.
Being selected for jury service doesn't mean you'll serve on a jury. When a new case starts and a jury is selected, sixteen names will be drawn at random from the pool of available jurors. If your name appears on this list you'll be taken to the courtroom where the jury officer will list the names and places involved in the case. Familiarity with any of these makes you ineligible to serve on the jury. Assuming everybody is eligible, twelve names will be selected from the group to serve as the jury. The four additional jurors are kept as spares, in-case either of the counsels object to any of the selected jurors. On my first day of jury service my name appeared on one of these lists of sixteen possible jurors, but the defendant changed their plea to guilty before the trial began, so we weren't needed.
Assuming you're selected, you will be asked to swear an oath or affirmation depending on your religion (or lack thereof). As someone that struggles with speaking in public reading the affirmation was stressful, but beyond this, unless you volunteer as the foreman of the jury (the person that reads out the verdict), you won't be required to speak in the courtroom again. After the jury has been selected the judge will give a short overview of the case and what the defendant is being charged with. The indictment (case) may consist of multiple counts (allegations of offence). The jury will be required to reach a verdict of guilty, or not guilty, for each count. Along with the paperwork detailing the case, you'll receive this leaflet, which describes the rules you need to follow while serving on a jury.
Now we move on to hearing the evidence from witnesses. Witnesses for the prosecution appear first and are questioned by the prosecution first. After the prosecution has asked all their questions of a witness, the defence then gets the opportunity to ask questions, attempting to pick holes in the evidence given by the witness. The prosecution then gets the opportunity to ask any follow-up questions that arise as a result of the questions from the defence (cross-examination). This process then repeats for each of the prosecution witnesses. Once the prosecution has exhausted their list of witnesses it's the turn of the defence to call their witnesses and the process at starts again, this time in reverse (defence questions first, then prosecution, then cross-examination by the defence).
It is made very clear that the verdict(s) you reach should only be based on the evidence you hear in the courtroom. There may be times that either the defence or prosecution stray outside of this area and will be told that they cannot continue and you may even be asked to disregard certain things you have heard. There seems to be a lot of effort put into avoiding "poisoning the well" of evidence with information not directly relevant to the case, so the jury is frequently asked to leave the courtroom for these matters to be discussed.
Another rule is that you can only discuss the details of the case when all twelve jurors are present and there is no chance of being over-heard. Whenever we retired to the ante-room next to the courtroom we discussed the case as it progressed. The jury clerk told us that we should only begin our discussions once all the evidence was complete and we retired to the deliberation room, but this wasn't backed up by the rules we were given. I'm not sure how they expect you to not discuss the evidence you've just heard if the opportunity arises. They suggested that this was because there was a risk of us being over-heard, but as this was the room we were taken to when matters were being discussed in the courtroom that we weren't to hear, if they're confident that we cannot hear them, doesn't it follow that they shouldn't be able to hear us?
Once all the evidence has been heard from all the witnesses, the conclusions will begin. The counsels for both the prosecution and defence will sum up their cases and give their best arguments as to why they believe you should pass judgements of guilty or not guilty. The judge will then provide a "summing up" and a route to verdict. The summing up is their summary of the evidence based on the notes they have taken throughout the trial. The route to verdict breaks down the relevant laws and exactly what must have taken place in order for the defendant to be found guilty. The judge does not express any views on the factuality of the case or arguments made, they only direct the jury on what the relevant laws are. Remember, it is innocent until proven guilty. The job of the prosecution is to prove guilt, it is not the job of the defence to prove innocence, only to insert sufficient doubt. If you are 51% sure they are guilty and 49% sure they are not guilty then you are to find them not guilty. To find them guilty you must be sure that they are guilty (the phrase "beyond reasonable doubt" is no longer applied).
We agree that guilty people should walk free rather than the innocent be convicted. That is why, if we know one of two people did the deed but cannot be sure which one, we let both go free, rather than locking up both knowing that it guarantees we get the right man.
- The Secret Barrister
Now the deliberation begins. For this you are taken to a separate deliberation room. Before entering the room the clerk will place any phones and laptops in a locker to ensure they can't be used. You can still only discuss the case when all jurors are present, so if anybody needs to use the toilet deliberations are supposed to wait for their return. If there are any queries they are to be written down and given to the jury clerk to be taken to the judge. To receive an answer you will then all make the walk back to the courtroom for a response. The decision on whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty should be unanimous, so if there are disagreements you need to work through them all until everybody is in agreement. There does seem to be some process by which a verdict can be given that is not unanimous, but as we never reached this point I'm not sure what the criteria are.
What happens after deliberation depends on whether the defendant is found guilty on any of the counts. When this happens the judge will decide on a sentence, but this may not happen on the day the case is concluded. If the defendant is found not guilty on all counts then everybody leaves the court and returns to their normal lives. If you get called again for jury service within two years you can refuse, but after that there's every possibility you may get selected again.
Among the people serving at the same time as me there was a mix of sentiment between those that were happy to be there and those that wished they hadn't been selected. Personally, I was grateful for the opportunity to experience it, to gain some insight on a process I know very little about. There are so many things to be experienced in life, some at a time and place of your choosing, but this isn't one of them. If you want to experience sky-diving you can go sky-diving, if you want to visit America you can visit America, if you want to experience being on a jury you can only hope you get selected.
Serving on a jury feels like being in a social experiment with very real consequences. The members of the jury may come from all walks and ages of life, from university students to retirees and everything in-between. Some may get on, while others do not. Yet, at the end, they all need to come together in agreement about whether a crime was committed. Whatever decision they reach can affect the lives of defendant, the witnesses and many others who they may not even have seen in the courtroom.
It reminded me of the golden era of television, before binge-watching was possible. Each week a new episode would be released and if you missed it who knows when, or even if, it would ever be repeated. Coming into school or work the next day you could be sure that it would be a topic of conversation for the day. When the same pace of episodes was forced on everybody you were all free to discuss and speculate based on what you had seen, knowing that nobody present had seen any more, or any less, than you.
Since completing jury service I've read The Secret Barrister. It answered a lot of the questions I had about the process and helped with writing this article. If you're interested in learning more about the history of the British court system, how it all fits together and some of the problems it faces, I highly recommend reading it.