Or a jury member, perhaps.
As we reflect on the outcome of the 2-years-in-the-making
Hillsborough inquest, I can’t help but notice that a lot of people have a lot of
views about what happened that fateful day 26 years ago, and whether the jury
got it right, or partly right, or not at all right.
It’s a common thing – all the more common in this age of
insta-comment thanks to Social Media in all its many flavours. Everyone’s
a critic, they used to say.
But as a lawyer I’ve often been asked my opinion on the
latest trial outcome. “Did you see that Mr X got off? Disgusting,
isn’t it?”
As an aside I can’t help but mention that the questions
always seem to be phrased this way: did the defendant “get off”?
No, he didn’t “get off”. He was acquitted. He was innocent till
proven guilty, and he wasn’t proven guilty, so how could he “get off” anything?
I’ll get back to Hillsborough in a moment.
My answer is, nearly always, “I don’t know enough about it
to form a view. But the jury probably did, and probably got it right.”
Court proceedings are nothing like as interesting as they
are portrayed in fiction. A moment’s brilliant cross-examination might
take your breath away – once, for a minute, in a 3 day hearing – but it’s the
exception, not the rule.
The rule is prosaic. The advocates take the jury
through the evidence, one step at a time. Many witnesses recount
uncontroversial matters. Many items of evidence – photos, maps, diagrams,
items from the scene and so on – will be looked at and looked at again.
Experts will give evidence, in detail, sometimes for hours, sometimes for
days. Reports running into 100s of pages will be reviewed, meticulously,
by judge and jury. Tough questions will be asked. Opinions change.
And sometimes the outcome is the wrong one. Every now
and then there’s a miscarriage of justice. That’s why I’m so sure that we
need to keep an excellent, expert and legally-aided criminal defence system
going in this country – because without it, you can face the full weight of
“the system” with no-one to help; and sometimes you’ll be locked up for being
in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But that isn’t common. The usual outcome, in my
experience of nearly 30 years in practice, is that the jury gets it right.
The Hillsborough jury took 2 years to get it right.
They lived and breathed that dreadful day, for 2 years. Lawyers
represented just about everyone with a proper interest. All the questions
seem to have been asked, all the evidence considered.
Is it likely that the odd commenter on Social Media is
right, and that this jury got it wrong?
I don’t think so. From what I’ve seen and read in the
press – and you can’t rely on it too far, I know – the conclusions of the jury
are not only likely right – but fairly unsurprising.
Social Media gives everyone the chance to be a lawyer.
But I think we should all think twice before we take a view contrary to the people
who have really looked into a case.
Paul Scholey - Senior Partner
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