I had quite an experience with 11 other jurors coming up with the verdicts for 6 different charges. About 2 weeks ago, I was a summoned by the district court to work as juror. The case that I got allocated to was a rape case involving 2 very young adults. I am so glad that it is all over now and I can talk about it.

This is my first time being a juror and it is definitely alot more stressful than I originally thought. I don’t normally watch those law court dramas so all the procedures are very new to me. It was quite an awful experience listening to the victim and witnesses iterating the story in full description. I couldn’t bare seeing the victim being cross examined by the defendant barrister. After 2 weeks, those words I hear in court (sexual intercourse, assault, lie) keep repeating in my head. I am glad this is all over now, and I can tell you the accused was guilty for 5 out of 6 charges.

The big twist of if all was at the very end, after we gave the verdict. The sheriff told us that he accused had some violent history, which we weren’t allowed to know as it might sway our judgement on this particular case. This guy had stole a car, kidnapped a girl, drove across three states and put a gun on a woman’s head. It was quite a shock to us at the point, as we had some argument as to whether he was guilty or not. It was hard to decide who to believe because the victim’s story was all over the place and the accused was quite confident with his statement. He’ll probably need to get some psychiatric help as there’s suggestion of schizophrenia from his behaviour. Anyway we’ll find out the sentence in about 6 weeks and we’ll also have a jury reunion as post jury support 🙂