Trial underway

The defendant is accused of dealing in large amounts of Methamphetamine in a role which puts him as a wholesaler. As presented by the prosecution he has little to do with manufacture of Meth or smuggling of the raw ingredients into NZ. He is a businessman and his transactions could be of any product were it not for the secrecy involved.

Jury composition

The selection process for juries has worked wonderfullly well in the case of this jury. We are a very representative group of New Zealanders. There is a 50 year age range, half a dozen races and grat diversity of occupations. Most of us speak out and are confident either to ask questions or to give our opinions though one man only ventured to speak when he was directly asked to present his view. We return to the seats that we chose when we first entered the jury room eash time we go there for morning and afternoon tea, just as we take th same seats in the jury box in the courtroom. One of our number is consistantly late in the morning, always the last to arrive and once even holding up the court from starting!

cellphone transcriptions

The case really begins. we are given notepaper and pens, logbooks of comings and goings outside a factory gate, and a huge folder of cellphone transcriptions. We each quietly count the number of pages (over 300) and estimate how long it will take to get through them all.
A recording of the 'phone conversation is played. We can hear comprehension. anger, confusion from these but as they are held in several foreign languages we don't get any of the content. This is remedied by a policeman reading the transcripts aloud to us, as we follow in our own copies. He has a very prosaic voice.

new courtroom, same jury

Back in the High Court we each are taken to a new, modern courtroom. the 'staff' introduce themselves and their roles. The judge a kindly, older man thanks us for our attendance and makes various reassuring remarks. The registrar a formal, Indian man is our guide in court matters and ushers us in and out of the jury room and hands our the evidence folders to us. There are two prosecution lawyers and one defence. Prosecution are in front of the defence lawyer, who is in turn in front of his client, who is accompanied by a police/prison officer. The clerk of the court sits near the judge and records proceedings. We, the jury are on the judge's left, straight across from us is the witness box. Judge, registrar and lawyers are all in black gowns.

new jury

Getting to the court is a breeze, I just get my usual bus but stay on for two more stages. this trial is at the high court, I havn't been here before. It is a grand old building (built in the 1800's) on one side, a late 20th C building on the other, connected by a glass roof over the old courtyard. The jury assembly room is half full when I arrive, give my name to the clerk and sit. (No checking that we are who we say we are, guess no one tries to infiltrate a jury) the room fills up and we are shown a DVD of court proceedure. the staff are all very reassuring, they know that for each of us it is all new. The names of people present are in a octaginal box on a spindle, the clerk gives it a spin, opens the door on it and calls out a name, that person gets a card indicating which courtroom they are to go to. I'm one of 40 selected for courtroom 1. We are told that we are lucky, it is the original courtroom, not much used these days but trials are still in progress in other courtrooms. We form a long crocodile after the clerk to a magnificent room, a little like a victorian church, and as cold as charity. We sit at the back of the room and the octaginal box is spun again to select the jury. As names are called people walk slowly to the jury box while the lawyers frantically look at their papers for info on these potential jurors. 3 older pakeha men are challenged and I'm called 12th and last, not challenged.

12 jurors or is that 13?

The 12 of us jurors are sent out to this very cold, bare room to decide who is to be foreman. Having learnt from before, I wait for someone else to start talking. One of us introduces himself and the rest follow.. then wait...most of us have been on juries before, nobody wants to be pushy, we will be together for weeks. A young bloke volunteers and we agree happily. Then one young woman says that she has a placement due in the next couple of weeks, if she doesn't go her graduation will be postponed for 6 months. Several of us say she must ask the judge if she can be excused, it is unreasonable for her life to be on hold for so long. We all troop back into the courtroom and she talks to the judge briefly, he does excuse her. Fortunately the remainder of the jury pool is still there. Another juror is balloted and because we are technically a new jury we go back to the little room, confirm our choice of foreman and return to the courtroom. We are then dismissed for the rest of the day and the next, unit a more modern and comfortable courtroom is available.

2nd jury

Two, maybe three years ago I was on another jury. The 12 of us sat in the room off the courtroom to decide who was to be foreman. We all sat there like bumps on a log until I asked who had been on a jury before, who had chaired a meeting. Mumbled replies, then I was nominated chair! The trial was a sexual violation case, not too terrible as such things go. We reached a unanimous verdict. At the start of deliberations I asked that we didn't express opinions on guilt or otherwise until we had collectively looked at discrepancies with the evidence. this took some time but we arrived at an unanimous verdict of guilty. I was quite nervous standing up in courtroom at the end, announcing our verdict.