The Last Bastion?
JURIES
By JOHN TERRAINE
The first disagreeable discovery was the exis- tence of a phenomenon known as a 'spare jury.' These exist to maintain the continuity of action in the courts—a reasonable precaution, when one learns that between 450 and 500 cases were to be dealt with in the nine days of this session. But for the unfortunate jurymen, a 'spare jury' can be almost unmitigated misery. It involved the twelve of us in sitting for hours as onlookers of cases, rarely interesting, in which we had no part to play. Hours of non-smoking; hours of sitting still and listening; hours to think of what one might have been doing instead. Some of us asked whether this was really a necessary ordeal. It seemed to boil down to a simple matter of accommodation: was there simply no space in that large building for a 'spare jury-room'? Just one fair-sized room, which the 'spare juries' could have shared while they waited for their turns, would have made it possible for some to smoke, some to read the paper, some to do crosswords, and others even perhaps to write letters or be constructive in other ways.
There were other irritants. Smokers, in par- ticular, found this a trying time. It is under- standable that smoking should be forbidden in court; but is it necessary to prohibit smoking in corridors, and in the vast entrance hall? It is a useless prohibition, in any case; barristers, wit- nesses and officers of the courts themselves con- stantly came into view with cigarettes and pipes going. But worse still, we later discovered, was the extraordinary situation in a recently built pre- fabricated annexe to the main building. Here two courts functioned steadily, so that between fifty and a hundred people were constantly using the premises. In the public part of the building, where barristers, solicitors, witnesses, defendants and officers waited at all times, or put brief intermis- sions to their best use, there was just one toilet for men, and one for women. Again, one may say, a needless irritation.
The work itself, the actual jury-service, once one is sworn in and actually concerned with a case, is the least of the troubles. That, after all, is what one is there to do; one desires to get on with it. Even so, in my own experience, the labour can be overdone. If one has any con- science at all, it is not a light matter to sit in judgment on a fellow-being. More than that, few people have the habit of prolonged mental con- centration. It is an effort for them; it tires them. To be bustled from one court to another, from one case to another, immediately after arriving at a verdict, does not, I think, serve the best interests of justice and the law. And to be sent to another court after hying an awkward case, just to be 'spare,' is harrowing. What of the courts themselves and the work they are doing? The jury on which I served tried six cases in eight days, and sat in on parts of about as many more. We saw four judges in action, and numbers of barristers; we saw and heard many witnesses, the large majority of them policemen. We were able to form some impression, at least, of British justice. I doubt if any of us would disagree that the judges, especi- ally, were impressive. From each of those four very different men, I, at any rate, gained a sense of fairness and compassion, of a desire to take every mitigating factor into account in passing sentence, of a determination that the rights, even of an evil-doer, should be protected These were humdrum cases—that is to say, the sort of cases which constitute nine-tenths of all offences. If nine-tenths of British justice is handled as these men handled it, it is not bad justice.
The same, many of us felt, could not always be said of counsel. But the remarkable thing, and the satisfying thing, is that generally speaking it was counsel for the prosecution (often the Crown) which earned our disapproval by off- handedness, perfunctory or careless presentation of a case. In one case, in order to bring in a quite correct verdict of guilty, our jury had to think up all sorts of possibilities and hypotheses which were not, strictly speaking, our business at all. These should have been supplied to us, for acceptance or rejection, by counsel. We knew that this was so, because in another case a good Crown counsel had done just that. By contrast, only in one case did we feel that counsel for the defence (often on legal aid or a dock brief) had done less than his best for his client. We ad- mired the hard and sometimes pretty thankless work of defending counsel on behalf of clients who, on occasions, turned out to have few deserts. It made no matter; most of these men did their level best to get their clients off, and it was at times painful to have to reject their pleas. This, too, speaks well for British justice.
Finally, since we saw a good deal of them, and since they are considerably under fire at present, a word about the police who gave evidence before us. I soon realised that in an average selection of 'good men and true' there is a deep fund of anti-police sentiment. One of our number fre- quently expressed himself forcefully and colour- fully on the subject: 1--ing coppers' was a phrase which sprang to his lips. But I doubt whether he or any of us was ever seriously dis- contented by the way in which the police gave evidence.
We had, I think, a technical complaint: there seems to be something wrong with the way in which police evidence is taken in lower courts. Much time was wasted by establishing trivial contradictions between what a policeman had said before a magistrate and what he was now saying before a judge. I think this is a matter which has been gone into, and new procedures are being devised: a good thing, too. But the main point about the police witnesses is, are they fair? The ones I saw were certainly fair. Of course, 'coppers stick together'; it will be a bad day for the police force (and the public) when they don't. But I saw almost nothing of any attempt to load evidence against defendants. Did he resist arrest, officer?"No, sir.' Was he obstreperous in any way?"No, sir, he wasn't.'
When you go on holiday; at Milne or -abroad, we can post your Ipectietor' to you each Thursday • Send yaw address and is. U. per copy to the Sales Manager, The Spectator Ltd., 99 Gower Street, London, Wc1. 'Did he appear to be trying to be co-operative at the police station?"Yes, sir, he was co- operative.' And then, when a man is found guilty, and the 'antecedents officer' is called: 'Is this man of good character, as far as you know, officer?' As far as I know, of excellent charac- ter, sir.' This was my experience; others may have found matters otherwise. Again, I thought, a good mark for British justice.
As the super-state- grows, we daily see the democratic rights and functions of citizens diminished. I am bound to admit, despite all the inconvenience, that if jury service should prove to be the last bastion to survive, it is worth defending to the last round.
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