And Justice for All?

Am I one of the first to comment on the Michael Jackson verdict? I was oddly transfixed by Sky this morning. Can't help but wonder what all those lovely actors will be doing now their reconstruction jobs have come to an abrupt halt. Will the guy who played the King of Pop get his own TV Special for doing "pained" and "infathomable" so very well?

Seeing the Jackson Jury interview was enlightening as well, bringing back memories of my own stint at Bham Crown Court a few years ago -minus the press conference of course! the cases I endured were infinitely less glamorous. One of them, a particularly unremarkable tax-wasting excercise, saw us reach a verdict in an astounding 98 seconds, but the other was slightly more memorable, not so much due to the case itself but rather my fellow jurors.

Picture the scene: I'm fresh out of University, clutching my degree in Healing The World and a complex to match. We get chosen at random and file into the courtroom to watch the impressive performances of braying barristers, on a case which reeks of the ugly racial hatred which still permeates certain areas of dear old Brum.

After 4 days of trial, we "get a room". The 12 jurors have already got to know each other slightly what with all the waiting around the process entails. I personally can't shake off the extremely annoying (albeit slightly entertaining) Gazza, who claims to be my age and the manager of a menswear store. He also claims to have 7 A-Levels at Grade A, having attended a school which doesn't actually teach that many subjects, and that he's going to Oxford next year to study journalism or medicine (he hasn't decided yet.) Whatever, Gazza's porky pies get porkier and I keep playing "Smile and Nod" because his nonsense on loop is still preferable to the evil glances of Evelyn, the cuddly grandmother I'd expect to see in an advert for Yorkshire Tea but who -wait for it- spat when I took my juror's oath on an Old Testament. Her cohort is Bill, an older gentleman who endlessly smokes JPS out the window while muttering about "the coloureds." I kid you not: welcome to pre-millenial Birmingham.

Ok, so it isn't all disheartening. Helen the Office Manager is very nice, and John the self-proclaimed Foreman, (self-proclaiming notwithstanding) is a very smiley gentleman who is polite to everyone. And my new best friend is Dave the Postman, who seems so thankful that Gazza the Imaginative has found someone else's ear to bend that he has taken to bringing me sympathy coffees, placing them down while raising an eyebrow. Great bloke, one of the encounters which made up for the idiocy in the vicinity: over one lunch break, Dave was poignantly recounting the recent miraculous recovery his daughter had made from acute meningitis. Cue Gazza: "Meningitis? Oh, yeah, I had that last month. I was well sick, me. Doctors thought I was going to die." And on it went.

Oh, Gazza... I actually bumped into him outside the Pallasades a year later. He brandished his carrier bag, saying he'd just stepped off the train from Leeds, where he was "studying Journalism and living on Elland Rd". Just his luck, a friend from Leeds was with me that morning. "Where did you say you live, exactly?" she asked him. "There are no houses there!" He turned bright red and made a hasty exit in the direction of the shop he'd claimed to have managed. Wonder if he's still in there right now?

Sorry, I digress. So there we all are, 12 Jurors stewing in a room full of Bill's lethal fumes. I'm relatively silent at first, self-conscious of perceived poshness. It feels like hours go by while the completely irrelevant is re-hashed, until I can take it in no longer. "Look", I venture, delusions of Henry Fonda rising to the fore, "I don't think we are here to discuss whether we reckon he did it, whether we think he might have done it, or whether we think that it sounds like he did it. We have to make a group decision based only upon the evidence presented, not our own opinions and (quick glance at Bill) prejudices! Anything else is not relevant and actually a waste of all our time!"

Silence.

"Well, I say he must've done it" says Evelyn, folding her arms. "How can you say that?" shouts One Angry Parrot on a roll, all fears of ridicule due to grammar-school accent cast to the wind in the noble pursuit of justice. "There's not nearly enough evidence to prove anything at all- so you can't possibly convict him!"

"I think she might have a point" says one of the less friendly men, gesturing vaguely towards my chest. And lo, slowly the deliberations swing: much as they perhaps would like to, most jurors see that they cannot convict the accused of a crime if there is insufficient evidence. All save 4 jurors refusing to acknowledge this bare fact, including Gazza the Alleged Bearer of 7 A-Levels at Grade A, Evelyn the Prejudiced and Bill the Willing Inflictor of Cancer. We traipse up to the court, the Judge tells us we have to get a 10-2 minimum. Mais non. After 2 days of frustrating backing and forthing, which just increases my despair at the state of education in the country and I'm sure does nothing to improve Evelyn's already shining opinion of local Jews, we are called back to the Judge where he informs us that as we can't deliver a majority verdict, the case must be re-tried, at public cost, in front of a fresh judge. He casts a withering glance on the -clearly incompetent jury- as he sweeps out, a glance which happens to linger on this juror. And there was me absorbing the virulent antipathy of my fellow jurors for the Justice System, and the Justice System repays me with a lofty scowl. Charming.

Anyway, so that was my jury service. A lesson in many things. Thank goodness the judge stopped us when he did, or I think it could have gotten violent. I wonder if any of the Jackson lot nearly came to blows? Or if one of them will eventually break ranks for a book deal? Come what may, I advise the freed Mr. Jackson, when he gets around to reading this blog, to avoid the company of minors in the future, and once he has recovered from this ugly media circus, return to his traditional way of keeping us entertained.