Agony and ecstasy

It does not get any better with age, the verdict. Of course it is always much worse when defending than prosecuting, but even then it is still a moment of apprehension and tension. As the blood pressure rises, I wonder is this good for us?

By the end of the trial you have been through it all with the defendant. He has not become your friend but he has come to rely on you in a world that is out to get him down. You are not required to like him and most of the time you do not. But it is an odd privilege being in close proximity to a person in acute stress, knowing where your duty lies and knowing that if you don't like that fact then you had better not be doing the job.

Finally, after the monotonous rollercoaster of a trial, you get to the speeches. You listen to the prosecution huff and puff and then it is your turn. At last you are out there, running free, saying just what you want to, emphasising, minimising, indignant and concessionary by turns. The whole spectrum of evidence is yours, the theatre of it is yours, and then you have shot the last bolt, there is no more ammunition, you end in a flourish and there isnothing more to be done. You sit down and listen to the agony of the summing up.

Then suddenly the jury are going out. All those hum-drum days have crystallised into the defendant being granted bail in the precincts of the court and you take some instructions on bail and sentence if it is not going to go his way, and then you wait.

Waiting '“ sometimes you have barely got a coffee and it is back to court. Sometimes it is literally days. In the robing room we read the papers, do the easy crosswords and do just what we have warned the client not to do: speculate on what the amount of time the jury has been out means in terms of the verdict. You want the jury to hurry up but you don't want the verdict. Then there are tannoys back to court and you learn it is a note from the jury '“ relief: you have not lost yet.

Crunch time

Then there is the second tannoy '“ just as you have finally got around to getting another brief out of your bag, with a sickening lurch you are told the jury have a verdict. The atmosphere changes immediately. The defendant is back in the dock and all the boredom and the jokes and the ups and downs of the past few days have gone as judgment is coming into court. You don't look at the jury but stare at your notebook. The questions are asked and the key players are standing '“ the defendant and the foreman '“ and the verdict comes.

It is all or nothing. It is absolute. Much of the time a guilty verdict is expected. Sometimes an acquittal is against the odds. For the client they are back on the street or convicted and facing imprisonment. You pick it over. Curiously, when it is not guilty, they say that funny thing: 'Don't take this the wrong way, but I hope I never see you again.'

The sentence will probably be another day, when everything has changed. I always marvel that people actually turn up to be sentenced at all. And then it is over, whether you have swung it to the non-custodial side or downstairs in the cells, you will never see each other ever again. You were not required to like them and you probably didn't, but that time in such close proximity is over. There may be some self-reproach and analysis and rationalisation as to what you did and did not do, but there is usually little you can do about it now.

Back to the beginning

And then there is the next one, tomorrow or the next day, and it starts all over again. We don't really think about our clients after they have gone '“ when they may be released, or what they are doing after their acquittal. We are not like GPs who see their clients again and again, or like solicitors who keep some sort of relationship over the years. Nor do we want that.

But, however many trials we have done, however many speeches we have made, we still, when the moment comes for the verdict, want to win. It is pure drama, pure theatre '“ and never predictable. No wonder we are on edge; is this good for us I asked at the beginning? It may not be good for us '“ but it is certainly good for justice.