Tuesday, 14 December 2010

The pain of decision !

Spare a thought for the jurors in the Keli Lane trial. It must have been traumatic to decide the fate of another human being in a case where there was no body - and everything hinged on a course of action that could not be proved either way. Some of the jurors openly wept when the " guilty " verdict was announced.

Being forced to sit on a jury is something many people fear - and it is something beyond their control. The Sheriff picks at random from the voter rolls, and once selected there are few avenues of escape. The law demands attendance on the lofty principles of " duty as a citizen ".

Jurors are paid for their attendance, but this bears no reality to the stress that is involved. In some cases the jurors are sequestered - locked away from their families for the duration of the trial - and some trials go on for weeks - and in rare instances - months.

It is said that after the most difficult cases the minds of those unfortunates forced to hear harrowing evidence are never the same again. There is coercion in the jury room to achieve a result - and some are forever haunted that they gave in when they were not truly convinced.

In this case, the judge said that these jurors would be forever freed from the obligation to ever have to sit on a jury again. Maybe a case of shutting the stable door - after the horse has bolted !

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