s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

I had a week I will not soon forget. Being called for jury duty can be a pain, but when you get put on a case this bad, it makes you wonder if you were a harp-seal clubber in a past life, and now need to pay off some karma.

What was the case? Child sexual abuse against two girls, one going back to age 6. 19 different counts of rape and other nastiness. The trial lasted 5 totally exhausting days, we finished with our verdict yesterday (Friday afternoon). We knew it was going to be happy case when, during jury selection, the lawyer for the accused used all her challenges trying to exclude young women from the jury.

The case was made even more difficult by the complete lack of physical/forensic evidence. It was all stories, and a matter of who you believed. (One thing we did discover is just how easy it is to see how the lawyers are trying to manipulate the jury, and how we would later try to double-think their moves to figure out what they were trying to lead us AWAY from, as that could be just as interesting.)

The verdict- not guilty on all 19 counts. Our opinion? The stepdaughter was almost certainly molested when she was 6, that testimony had details and emotional character different from all the rest. But we cannot say that he is the one that did it, there were opportunities other men had during that time frame (and we know lots about the life of this family back in the mid-90′s now). Thus reasonable doubt, and a not-guilty verdict. Both the step-daughter and her friend may well have been groped by the accused over the last few years. The problem was that their testimony included accusations of much more severe offenses, and the details of when/where those happened fell apart (not physically possible in one case). We think that the girls (being 13 at time of complaint) may not have realized that “just” groping is quite a serious charge in itself, and tried to “jazz-up” the charges with more serious crimes. The problem was that when the more serious crimes fell apart (evidence-wise), it entered serious doubts as to their credibility, and thus we had to rule not-guilty on the lesser touching-crimes.

What really made everything more difficult was that the kids had about 2 days together after the accusations were first expressed (to their friends at school) before they were initially questioned by the police and separated. So when their accounts were videotaped the following day we had to know that they had had too much time to discuss the incidents with each other. If they had told those stories the day of the first revelation we would have taken their testimony very differently.

Concentrating that hard, for that long, every day is brutal. All you have is truth and lies, so we were staring at every withness (accused, accusers, friends, family) looking for the smallest hint of body language that would give us a clue as to who was telling the truth, who was lying, who was covering up or telling half-truths. Really tough to do! All 12 of us complained how exhausted we were each evening after the day in court.

I thought it was very nice of the judge, during the closing comments of the case, to mention that he agreed with the our verdict. I know it will all help us sleep well. (Better than him exclaiming “WHAT!” as the verdicts were read!)

I know that some of the people who read this blog have had much more…personal… experience with abuse. Coming at the issues from within a court of law was interesting. We judged the facts, as was our duty. We were instructed as to the law. We made our judgements. We were unanimous, and nobody in the jury-room was browbeat into compliance. The result may not be perfect, but it was the right one. No system is perfect, but we 12 were a good cross-section of New Zealand (7 men, 5 women, age 21 to 65, 4 immigrants, a range of professions and educational backgrounds, some singles, some with kids or grandkids) and applied standards of common decency and common sense. I don’t think there is a system that would be more likely to produce better results.

But that was not all that happened on Friday. On my way to the court house a woman was assaulted (knocked to the ground) behind me as I crossed a street. I went back to see if she was okay, and she pointed at a man (disappearing down the streat) and informed us of what had happened, so I found myself running down the street in pursuit. Didn’t catch him. When do I get my cape and mask? Friday really was a day when Stephen-Agent of Justice was patrolling the streets of Wellington.