Mine involved a defendant who demanded to testify against the advice of his barrister as they were about to go to their closing arguments, lets just say he didn’t help his own case.
Spent two days in the waiting room. Day one nothing. Not even a call up. But I did meet an awesome chick that day.
Day two. They sat all of us down first thing in the morning and we needed to agree to do a case that could last upwards of 5 weeks. We just had to say yay or nay. I said nay because I’d literally just started a new job. My jury house girlfriend said yes and that was that. What could have been. At a guess only I think it was the Burke Street Mall case.
Later on that day got a big ■■■■ you from the defence lawyer of a case. Then the next one was a pedo case. Read the charges. There was tears and everything from potential jurors it was a really, really tough thing to sit through. Then obviously you have a chance to say if you don’t want to be on the jury. By the end of that, of the 25 that were there, there was only 12 of us left. Enough for a jury but because the defence has the chance to dismiss 4 potential jurors we all got sent home. And because that was two days, that was the end of my experience.
I was getting lined up for the 4 hour cool down one night by the boys in blue when they turned around to see my mate pi55ing on their car.
Completely forgot about me and dragged him in instead. He came out with a few bumps and bruises.
I’ve copped a few clips around the head from them, (some were decent punches too) but no jail time. Good old Ballarat, where the biggest crims wore the badges.
Going back at least 40 years the old man got called up for a Delicatessan who was applying for a liquor licence (TRUE). Was his mate & licence granted.
Yeah, I personally was never challenged, maybe it was the dumb look on my face.
But if I had got challenged I would definitely have felt like saying “Why!!!???”