The Jury - Channel 4

[Tomcat]

Who's been watching this? A murder trial recreated for TV and tried by two separate juries, sat side by side in soundproof boxes, unaware of the existence of each other. The script exactly followed the questioning and testimonies in the actual case, the facts almost identical, only the names and places changed. At the end, both juries had to decide their verdict. The case was chosen carefully I reckon, as there were valid arguments either side of the murder/manslaughter fence, and the point was to examine how juries work.

The end result was as I expected, the two juries coming up with different verdicts, but the real interesting stuff was the way they arrived at their decisions, with outspoken "characters" obviously having made their own minds up for reasons not necessarily based on the evidence, and determined to treat it as a competition to win or pressure others over to their POV. One of the most unedifying sights was one bloke punching the air in triumph and laughing as he "won" and the last objector tearfully admitted "defeat". And I further suspect that was the objective of the programme, to select "jury" participants to show how individuals can drive real juries, perhaps to the detriment of the accused or the victim, and how groupthink can take over despite opinions being very equally divided at the outset.

A good and thought provoking programme I thought. Did you watch it? What was your verdict? I thought 'not guilty' as I didn't think the case had been proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Spoiler - the real case the programme was based on

[Zimbo]

We watched it, it was interesting, and made me hope I never end up with mu fate being decided by a Jury! Agree that one or two individual outspoken characters were able to bully the rest of the jury into going along with them in the majority of cases.
I'd have found him guilty. The time taken to strangle the victim with bare hands until they lost consciousness, then walk outside to find a hammer (when there are plenty of hard, sharp and heavy object to hand) and return to beat her to death, that's several minutes work and I just can't see one could "lose it" for that long!