Confessions of a juror
Days serving on a jury in the Criminal Courts of Justice are regarded as ‘short’, but with all the prep and stress, it’s far from it. Those looking forward to ‘a week off work’ start to realise that it’s no doddle doing your civic duty. An anonymous juror gives some insights into their experience of jury service in the CCJ
Court X – DPP versus ‘Y’. I am a juror – call me ‘Z’. These are my experiences and pointers from over a week’s service at the Criminal Courts of Justice, at the bottom of Dublin’s Phoenix Park.
Day 1 – a Tuesday in the summer of 2025.
After technical difficulties with the TV link in the jury pen – a holding area very much like an airport departure lounge, on the ground floor of the CCJ – a series of jurors are eventually summoned to the courtroom before ‘Judge A’.
The defendant, ‘Y’, is carrying out their own representation and has been busily challenging jurors until the judge says all seven no-fault challenges have been exhausted. Counsel for the DPP has, by contrast, challenged just one.
More potential jurors have to be summoned from the pen. It’s not personal if you are challenged, we are repeatedly told, such that it feels almost like a game-show at one level.
With no more challenges by the prosecution, a jury is empanelled, this one with an unusual gender ratio of 3:1. It’s about the same ratio as those who choose to take up the traditional testament to those who affirm that they will “a true verdict give”, in accordance with the evidence. (It was mentioned in passing that there is also a Koran available.)
The judge tells us we’ll be the sole judges of fact in the case, and are to apply our common sense and life experience. We don’t have to be experts in anything, certainly not the law.
Prosecution counsel skims through an outline of the case and soon we retire to elect a foreperson. The defendant has been closely watching the jury, but there’s nothing to be gleaned at this stage.
Biscuit mountain
The jury room has a table with notebooks, pens, and a basket filled with a mountain of biscuits. What do they take us for? There are more options than for taking the oath. You can take the oatmeal, the custard creams, digestives, ginger nuts…
The room is dominated by a communal table, and there are tea and coffee facilities, and toilets situated at either end, although, unusually, no wardrobe for coats. This seems odd to jurors who attended call-over the previous day during Biblical rainfall.
The cases they avoided that day involved three alleged rapes. Our jury-minder introduces herself, explains a thing or two, chiefly about the dining options, then leaves us to pick a spokesperson.
But you immediately want to know about the food – so yes, it’s very good. Superior to hospital nosh by a long chalk, and in the carvery idiom. Today we’ll either have cottage pie or chicken with black pudding. One orders the other option – vegetable satay.
Confusingly, our courtroom (and therefore jury room) has one number, but our table for 12 in the communal dining area (for all juries) has another. Tip to the Courts Service: you might want to align court numbers with dining tables: you don’t want a mixed-up jury, however unlikely that is to ever come about.
Back in the room, someone asks the question if anyone wants to be foreperson and a man offers. There are no competing bids, so he is swiftly deemed elected.
If you want to know what juries talk about before being called into court for the first time, this one discussed bricks and cladding, matters pertaining to inter-county hurling, and the presidential claims of one Conor McGregor.
The first supper
Shortly before that ‘first supper’ (12 at the meal, after all, and no Judas), there’s an explanatory outline of the jury’s role, the defendant’s rights, and the meaning of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’.
This in itself seems reasonable; it is clearly not intended to exclude all possible doubt to the ‘Nth’ degree. Criminal defendant ‘ducks’, if they are to be convicted, should at least have a bill, feathers, webbed feet, and a propensity to quack.
Counsel may wonder to what degree juries take in the ‘pre-flight announcement’, but it’s the first time to hear it for most, and we are decidedly not jaded, instead paying close attention.
The right to draw inferences is outlined, meaning a circumstantial case could be a series of links in a chain until it is overwhelmingly likely that a certain person could have been responsible for an offence. We can join the dots.
Pass the gravy
Then to that lunch (for some reason there is a problem with gravy, not enough having been made), and jurors joke that we should enjoy it, as the nature of the evidence could turn stomachs tomorrow.
There is talk of commutes and parking questions (no availability at the complex itself, unless you risk the Phoenix Park), and two jurors find out they support deadly-rival football teams. Could be a disagreement right there!
Juries must leave together, so it’s all down to the slowest eater. We stack our trays in a kitchen fixture and are led out by the jury-minder and dismissed until morning, to assemble, orange jury-tickets in hand, at 10.30am for sitting at 11.
Day 2
The jury-minders do a good job assembling and herding, taking batches of six at a time up in the lifts, then through warrens of corridors.
We have to enter court in order, so that the first row of the jury box fills with juror 1 furthest left (from the judge’s point of view), then 2, 3, 4, etc, such that juror 6, the foreperson, is on the end closest to the judge, in front of a microphone with a button to be pressed should he need to be heard.
Jurors 7-12 fill up the back row of the box. By lining up according to our seating plan before we enter court, it means an orderly filling of places, even if juror 12 is left holding the door open each day for fellow jurors before bringing up the tail.
Challenging feng-shui
Our court is nondescript, apart from the harp symbolising Ireland, the paredback decoration, and wooden benches clearly intended to help focus attention on proceedings, rather than the feng-shui of the room itself.
Interestingly the clock is hard to spot – it’s on a back wall, silver hands and numbers on a white background. It takes an effort to find it, before even attempting to decipher what it’s showing. In this respect it seems to adhere to ‘Las Vegas principles’ – that players shouldn’t know the time.
Certainly, the jury focuses on the evidence, being conscientious and conscious we shouldn’t be clock-watching, but after a couple of hours of exhausting detail (which does tax the concentration and tire you physically), would the ability to peek at the clock be such a sin? In the end it’s a minor matter.
If courtrooms are traditionally said to be ‘stuffy’, then jury rooms are even more so. A cat would have to be passed from lap to lap, because there isn’t any room to swing it.
Thankfully, the first witness called into evidence has matters to deal with in the morning, so we are dismissed after 4pm until assembly next day at 1.30pm for a 2pm start. We’re all very grateful: paper-trails and big ring-binders of evidence demand close attention.
The court day is seen as short, but with all the prep and stress it actually isn’t. Even the judge yawned wearily. Those who were looking forward to ‘a week off work’ are starting to realise it’s no doddle doing your civic duty.
An bhfuil cead agam...?
Had to send up a note to the judge, which was fun. Amazingly, juries are cloistered in the CCJ like Trappist nuns. You can’t get out for fresh air during the lunch break, unless you obtain permission – from the judge!
The only alfresco option is a narrow balcony attached to the dining room that’s used as a smoking area, obviously totally unsuitable to nature lovers, asthmatics, and many others.
So we send up a folded note, via the registrar, before being graciously granted, etc. This is a waste of time, and the Courts Service should establish a proper protocol.
The jury room itself has sealed windows – so either provide an exercise yard (they have them in prisons, after all) or let folk off the leash. We promise we’ll keep an eye on the time as we dive down the bookies…
Oh, and we also (cheekily) told the judge to keep their voice up, please, as the bench had been mumbling away to themselves and we couldn’t hear. It had the desired effect, and we noted some of the attending wigs and gowns smirking to themselves.
More next month.
The author wishes to remain anonymous.