Thread:MaramaFen/@comment-35236548-20180523054420/@comment-34854170-20180523102652

It’s a really difficult thing to get 12 impartial people. This is my second time serving on a jury. In New Zealand, which is based on British law, potential jurors just have to walk towards bench and if you sit, you serve but if one lawyer calls challenge, your out. No questions are asked of potential jurors! A real Russian roulette situation, I feel. So you have no idea about whether someone can be impartial or not. The only get out is that you are told what the trial is about before they start calling potential jurors forward and if you feel you can’t be impartial because if the kind of case, you can go up and tell the judge why you can’t serve. That happened with about 6 women with the trial I’m involved in. So the system here hopes or presumes, you will volunteer that prejudice. With British law, we are really pressed upon to consider if we have without a reasonable doubt based on the evidence found the defendant Guilty. If there is any doubt that there is not enough evidence or something cannot be proven with hard clear facts, the person is not guilty. We are led through the process quite carefully that way. It’s a two way sword though. In the other trial I was involved with we all wanted to find the guy guilty as he obviously was a horrible man but there was not the evidence (it was a he said, she said situation) so we had to find him not guilty. Turns out he was already in prison for something else. It was a real eye opener as to how the law actually works. Our deliberations for this trial will be very interesting and it is going to be a difficult thing to get the entire group to consider/reconsider what we’ve heard/seen and been given. Some are a bit quick to make a judgement 🙀🙀🙀 it is going to take some time I feel.