Jury Service.

I've just got back from the district court after attending a jury selection process. And I thought I would get down how it went, what was involved and my thoughts on the whole thing and jury service in general. All this while it's still nice and fresh in my mind (for whatever that's worth).

The Selection Process

I think I'll begin by describing the selection process as it went. So it starts with a letter summoning you to attend at the district court for jury service. At this stage you are invited to attempt to provide an excuse if you feel that you cannot attend for any reason. Acceptable reasons are things like; Work, family commitments, disability ect. If you cannot supply an excuse, or if your excuse is not accepted. Then you are required to attend the selection process.
The selection process begins with all those who turned up collecting in a large room. I would estimate there were probably somewhere between 150-200 of us present at this point. Then there is a video. The video was about how jury service is important and blah blah blah. And some things we needed to know about the process.
After the video there was the house keeping. This is the evacuation procedure, these people can help your out and so on. That was followed by an explanation of the process we were about to follow for the selection. And another video explaining that process in detail. Then it went as follows.
There was a ballot drawn for each of the two trials starting that morning. The ballots were drawn one after the other. The first for court room 9. The second for court room 4. As each persons name was drawn from the wooden box, they had to acknowledge by saying yes. My name was drawn for court room 9. There were 50 names drawn for each room.
At the conclusion of the draw. Those whose names had not bee drawn were dismissed for the day with instructions to check with the court after 6 pm that evening to see if they would be needed again.
After a brief break of about ten minutes or so. The group for court room 9 was ushered out of the jury selection room and up one level into court room 9. There we were all seated in the public gallery at the back of the court room. The Judge, counsel and court personnel had already taken their seats but the accused was absent.
The court was called to session and the accused was brought in. The charge was read and the accused was asked if they were guilty or not guilty. They pleaded not guilty. The judge then explained to us that the prosecution would read the names of the witnesses to be called and that we were to indicate if we knew any of them. We were also asked to indicate if we thought we could not be impartial, now that we knew the identity of the accused, the counsel and the nature of the charge. No one excused them self.
Then the draw for the jury began. Again names were drawn out of a wooden ballot box. As each name was drawn. That person was required to go and take a seat in the jury box. At this point the counsel for each side (defense or prosecution) could challenge the selection before the person took their seat. This simply involved them saying "challenge". At which point the unwanted juror would simply turn around and return to their seat.
So the draw started. Names were read out and people took their seats. The first challenge came from the defense and it was one I expected (more on that later). The second challenge also came from the defense but was not one I expected. The third and last challenge came from the prosecution and was against my selection (again, more later).
After the selection was complete the jurors were asked to take and oath or swear an affirmation (more later) that they would do their job properly. Then they retired to choose a foreman. The judge explained that some of the jury could still drop out at this point and so we were not yet dismissed. When the jury returned. We were dismissed with instructions to check back if we would be needed tomorrow.

My Thoughts on the Selection


So the first thing I have to say is that I was actually rather impressed with the speed and efficiency of the whole thing. I really did expect it to be far more time consuming. The room was perhaps a bit too small for the number of people and it became a little stuffy despite the air conditioning. This was bearable though as we were not in there for too long a time.
Any way thats just noise.
The two points I really want to get to are the challenges to the jury selection and the oath/affirmation required by the jurors.

  The oath/affirmation.

As each juror goes to take their seat in the jury box they are offered a bible by the court attendant. This can be declined, as was explained to us in the video, by a shake of the head or a gesture of the hand. It is weird that this is stilled practiced. I cannot understand the association between the christen religion and our justice system. New Zealand is a secular state and our laws should have absolutely no connection with religion. No matter how slight.
This connection is reinforced by the oath that is administered to the jurors. It reads:

"Members of the jury: Do each of you swear by Almighty God (or solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm) that you will try the case before you to the best of your ability and give your verdict according to the evidence?"    

Almighty god? What the hell? Even if you want to argue that this exists purely as a historical artifact and has no real connection to Christianity. I still think it's complete bullocks. Of the 12 jurors that I saw take the oath today only 6 took the offered bible. And the history argument just doesn't hold water. We don't maintain links to other areas of our law that we no longer accept as right. This is holding up Christianity as something special in our society. And that is simply not a reflection of who we are as New Zealanders. How about this.

"Members of the jury: Do each of you solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm, that you will try the case before you to the best of your ability and give your verdict according to the evidence?"

What's wrong with that? The jury promises to hear the evidence and base their decision accordingly. Not just good rules for a jury but a pretty good strategy for life!

  The challenge to selection.

So as I mentioned above. The final selection for the jury involves a ballot and then these can be challenged by the counsel for either side. This is called peremptory challenge. The information video we had been shown earlier explained that counsel can challenge for any reason they like. They just say. "Challenge".  And that person doesn't sit on the jury. What is the point of this? The video suggested that it may be done to get a better balance on the jury. Balance of what I ask? Gender, Age, Socioeconomic status? From the challenges I saw today this did not seem to be the case.
The only thing that makes sense to me is that the challenge affords the counsel an opportunity to exclude jurors that they think may not look favorably on their case. And by so doing. Give themselves a better opportunity to be successful.
The reason peremptory challenge exists is so that counsel can exclude people who they believe may have a bias in some direction. And this is supposed to ensure a decision that is more fair and acceptable to all involved.
I disagree with this. First. How can you tell from someones name and appearance (the only information the counsel has) that they have any kind of bias? Correction:They also have access to your age, address and whatever your occupation is as listed on the electoral roll. But the point still stands. You can't. At best your can make a rough probabilistic guess based on your experience. But this is going to clouded by your own biases.  
Second. The challenges can be used to move the jury away from a representative cross section of society. This could be done for any number of purposes. For example. A counsel may know that a mostly female jury is more likely to convict for rape. And so they may use their challenges to exclude men. Random selection would result in a more or less even and balanced representation most of the time. 
The challenges during todays session certainly contributed to the second of these two and highlighted the first.
The first challenge was against young pacific island man. I had been sitting near him earlier in the day and heard him talking to another person. He was in second year at university and studying business. But he was dressed like he was on his way to work at a construction site. His name was called and I immediately expected a challenge form the defense (of whom I had made my own judgement). Sure enough. The second the defense lawyer looked up and saw him the challenge was made. So the defense lawyer immediately judged this lad as someone unfavorable just on appearance.
The second challenge was a middle aged man. I did't expect this one and I don't know why the defense lawyer challenged him.
The third challenge was me. My name was called and I got up to take my seat. Right before I sat down I was challenged by the prosecution and I returned to my chair. I of course have no idea why my selection was challenged. The best I can come up with is because I'm young and male (The accused was young, female and not unattractive).

The jury ended up being mostly older with 8 women and 4 men. There was one person under 30. A young woman who I would guess to be early twenties. One guy I would guess is in his mid thirties. And the rest would be 50 or over I think. O. And all of European descent (aka white). Is this an accurate representation of our society? You would have a hard time convincing me of that.   

 Jury Service and the Jury System.    

I'm not opposed to the jury system and jury service. Although I am happy that I'm sitting at home blogging and not in a court room. But I think better results can be obtained from a system where the decision on guilt or innocence is made by professionals with the correct knowledge and training.
For example. As a skeptic. I am always amazed by the fallibility of the human memory and our capacity to reason and rationalise. The fact that eyewitness accounts make up the majority of the evidence in criminal cases is scary when you know just how bad our memories are. Memory is not a camera. It is faulty and does change overtime. A person trained in, and familiar with, the problems of human memory will have a much better chance of determining truth out of often conflicting accounts.
Where trials involve complicated forensic evidence. It can devolve into a case of which expert do you believe more. What is needed in these cases is an understanding of the scientific process in order to evaluate the relevance and strength of the evidence presented.
I think that a panel of judges, trained in the intricacies of evidence and law. Have a far better chance of coming to the correct conclusions of a persons guilt or innocence.

I know that the trial by jury is of huge historical importance. And that it is considered by many to be a fundamental right of any citizen in a free democracy. You only have to look at the example of Mikhail Khodorkovsky (among many, many others) to see what happens when the justice system loses it's transparency, accountability and independence. But we can have these things and still have a system that provides for the best possible way of determining the truth.

I'm suggest that we follow the evidence. Does trial by jury give the best possible success rate for convicting the guilty and setting the innocent free?