Hanging around

Often it is necessary to try to de-mystify the court process as much as possible. Often one of the things that worries a client most is where they stand, what they should say to the judge and what they should wear. So, particularly with young or vulnerable defendants, I often go through the whole trial process from arraignment to verdict and what happens if the verdict is guilty. This also helps them ask the question that they don't always want to hear answered: will I go to prison if I am convicted?

I also point out that although they may have felt like a sausage in a '“ well, a sausage machine, at the plea and case management hearing, all in a crowd and loads of barristers coming and going and the tannoy going off like it does at the station when all the trains have been cancelled because a badger is on the line or some other such grave and weighty matter, when it comes to the trial there is a lot of time and an awful lot of hanging about.

How long will this take?

We have all spent hours and hours of our lives waiting '“ waiting to get on, waiting for the magistrates to stop drinking tea and come back and tell us what they are going to do (though the decision rarely takes us by surprise), waiting for the prison van to arrive, waiting to get into the cells while the prisoners are 'processed', waiting to get out of the cells, waiting for the case in front of you to finish while everyone gets their knickers in a twist over whether a particular police station is open 24 hours or not for signing on purposes and so on.

And then there comes the verdict. Now I have had a few corkers where I have only just got my coffee and sat down when we have all been tannoyed back into court, and in my first ever victorious Crown Court trial the majority direction was acted upon at the threshold of the court with a few nods and an about turn and there it was: not guilty by a majority of 10:2. But more often than not there is an awful lot of hanging about and waiting, interrupted by spasms of suspense when the tannoy goes off and says, 'Will all parties in the case of [X]'¦', before you return to reading the papers or helpfully finishing off somebody else's crossword, whether they wanted you to or not.

What are they doing in there?

We often wonder what the jury is up to. They must often wonder about us. Sometimes we think that they are just politely having a game of Monopoly or something, just to fill in the time so that it looks like they really have considered the (ludicrous) defence very carefully before coming back for the big moment and the inevitable guilty verdicts. (Or they are too busy laughing.)

Perhaps they are sometimes wreaking revenge on all the hours that we have kept them waiting with our 'it will only take ten minutes, your honour' type applications or 'just a short matter that I need to raise.' On such occasions a judge may say peevishly, 'I'm worried about the jury, they've been kept waiting a long time this morning.' We are tempted to reply, 'And we are worried about the defendant who could be kept a long time waiting for the next five years if we don't get this problem right.'

And then sometimes we know that the real problem is that they are, oh no '“ hung. Now the other day there was some report on the radio that suggested that it was all rather a bad thing that there are something like 150-odd hung juries a year. Is that all? If so I have had an awful lot of them. There are lots of bad things about hung juries '“ re-trials for a start: nobody wants a re-trial, as it is so dull. Re-trials are awful because the witnesses know what questions they are going to be asked, each side knows what the other is going to say, and that flash of inspiration that comes from the adrenalin never comes off quite as well second time around.

Oh, and the beastly prosecution goes off and plugs all the gaps that you had rather brilliantly exposed in the first trial.

Is there a problem?

But leaving aside our own selfish thoughts for a moment '“ what is so bad about a few hung juries? Doesn't it just show that the system works? Wouldn't it be more worrying if there were hardly any hung juries, which might then suggest that everybody (save a maximum of two) goes like a pack of cards one way or the other pretty easily? Some things are really difficult to decide upon, and it is no wonder that we have the odd hung jury. The judge does his or her bit with a bit of persuasion along the lines of 'try a bit of give and take' etc. (always a worry this bit, particularly if the 'give' goes against you and your client ends up on the wrong end of all the 'taking').

We should also bear in mind that two hung juries means an acquittal, normally '“ so that again shows that the system is acknowledged to be working in the interests of justice in the sense that doubt should prohibit a conviction.

So I think we can all stop worrying about hung juries. The only people to feel really concerned for are the poor old lawyers, defendants and witnesses who have to go through it all again. And the pay second time round isn't as good as the first. See '“ even with a new crossword it's no fun.