One Angry Woman, and the Odious Dog Walker

My brief foray into the hallowed halls of Justice was more than a decade ago.

Trepidation combined with excitement on the morning I arrived at Southport Courthouse, along with dozens of other hopeful applicants.

The universe seemed determined that I should partake in jury duty. Previously, I’d begged off because my son was a babe and I his caregiver. On one even earlier and frankly bewildering occasion I was sent a notice requesting my jury service while I was living in Southern California. Considering that at the time I was a UK citizen on a vacation visa, and wasn’t allowed to work or even study, this seemed a little unlikely. My response to that effect was met with inscrutable silence.

On the morning I turned up to do my Australian civic duty, I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to be chosen. Natural curiosity fought with genuine concern about not wanting to be responsible for the fate of other humans.

I believe that anybody who really wants to partake in jury duty, with no qualms of any kind, should probably be automatically disallowed. Rather like the fact that nearly all politicians should be automatically refused entry to politics. But I was aware that plenty who were far less qualified would leap at the opportunity; so I didn’t fight it, and was determined to do my duty.

We were herded into a holding pen and narrowed down into ever smaller groups, until eventually the chosen few were ushered into the courtroom. Here the lawyers decided who amongst us was a suitable candidate to decide the fate of the accused.

Surprisingly, at least to me, I was chosen.

So there we all were, lined up in our seats. 12 Good Humans and True. Well, that was the general idea anyway.

The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The first clue that juries aren’t always composed of the brightest bulbs was the court’s choice of compelled morning television watching.

In the large, brightly lit room used as a holding pen, we waited each morning for our court day to begin. And each morning we were regaled by the presence of an ever-present television burbling away, centre stage and in pride of place.

I strongly dislike TVs playing anywhere in public except nightclubs and pubs. But there was worse to come.

Every single morning the same show was playing. That show was The Bold and The Beautiful.

Held captive each morning, I pondered that it’s safe to assume that, unless it’s actually requested, nobody wants to watch this burbling drivel. I saw more of the trials of Hope and Beau that month than I had ever hoped to encounter in my entire life and my most clear recollection is thinking that if any of the cast stood too close to an open heat source, their skin would start to slough off in plastic rivulets. Should there be an IQ test for jurors? I wondered idly. Some of them were actually watching this hellscape with apparent interest.

I’m not an entertainment snob. We all have our embarrassing TV moments, some I will even admit to under pressure. But I draw the line at pretending The Bold and the Beautiful is an acceptable choice of viewing.

The Scold and the Dutiful

I don’t recall very much about the other jurors now. They were mostly 50+ men, and pretty decent sorts. Most of us were quite determined to do the right thing, and perused the videos we were given very carefully, while discussing key points of the argument with attentiveness. I’d have been happy for anyone on that jury to decide my fate.

Well, not quite anyone. Ten of them, including me, were capable of choosing my fate wisely, and then there was Brown Suit Man.

It was an oddly unappealing garment, designed to not fit in the most surprising ways. He kept schtum for the first couple of days, and would have done well to remain so, rather than removing all doubt. Let’s just charitably assume that he probably had a long and chequered history of drug addiction, because it would have been a particularly cruel fate that simply gifted him that demeanour, personality, appearance and general inability to comment coherently or follow the thread of the arguments.

“I am patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it”

Number 12 was the dog walker.

We knew she was a dog walker because she bitched, interminably, about not being able to walk the dogs she normally walked to earn a few dollars every day

There was no suggestion of any kind that she was poor, and besides which the Australian Government paid us for turning up each week. Not a king’s ransom, but certainly enough to cover dog walking activities. She was just audibly irritated at being inconvenienced by having to decide if a man should go to prison or not, when she wanted to be walking dogs. Or watching soapies.

She wasn’t completely stupid, but she was utterly charmless and vacantly and volubly disinterested in anything that might remotely be considered remarkable, unusual, creative, thoughtful or profound.

A dull, thudding headache of a woman.

Back in Glasgow, she’d have joined the bingo twice a week crew and bitched at the even the mildest non conformity, as keeper of the Crab Pot.

She brought to mind one of my aunts in the long ago and oh so far away, who was the personification of the quality of making a virtue out of necessity. Said aunt once nasally droned “Oh, I could never leave Scotland”, while I was visiting from one of my intercontinental travels. I was far too well raised to retort “Nowhere else would have you, so that’s lucky”, though I could sense my mother picking up my thoughts on the aether.

Dog Walker McWhinerson knew what she liked and everyone else had to like it too, I came to loathe her early morning compelled conversations.

She’d plop herself down next to me every morning, have a bit of a grumble about having to be there at all and then start her daily game of “Did you see the latest episode of Shitty TV Show of Choice last night?”

At first I just said no. I don’t like to be one of those sorts, you know the ones. Any discussion about a TV show and they leap up to inform you smugly that they aren’t of the common herd and have never seen a single episode of Shitty TV Show of Choice.

Nobody. Cares.

So I’d nod along and say little. This is my usual method of boundary setting when stuck in a room with a member of dribblers anonymous. I don’t mind a little small talk, but for a certain type of person that’s all there ever is - big talk is something they never aspire to. Worse, you can smell their fervour to drag you down into the depths of harrowing mundanity, and catch the dull malice glinting in their gimlet gaze.

But if I simply and smile and say as a little as possible, I generally escape unscathed from the grey, sticky world of the martinents of mundanity without being either forced to give them the validation they demand or getting into any sort of debate. Least said, soonest mended.

Except when you’re forced to spend time with them on the Government dime every single day for weeks on end.

As The Brain Burns

Days passed and she became ever more cunning in her efforts to nail me down to having watched something, anything, that she deemed acceptable; the screws of scrutiny were turned.

What about “Hysterical Hairdos? No? What about Bonkers Bikini Beach Blunders? No? What about Clueless Cooking Chaos? No? What about Whacky Wedding Woes? No? Then what about…?”

But you MUST have seen the episode where dreary person told dreadful person to…? Surely? Then what about the one last week when slutty man told trampy woman to…?

On and on and on (and on). She apparently watched EVERYTHING on free to air TV, all night long, every single night.

Which is fine, whatever, I play Matchington Manor - who am I to judge?

On about the fourth day she finally winkled it out of me. I was forced to admit I never watch network television.

My Amercian cousins may not know that it’s not all that unusual even in 2025 for Australians to watch network television. Most do have a streaming service or two, but still tune in to various shows free to air.

But at this point, I’d been avoiding all network television, up to and including the news, for years. And even when watching streaming services, I was and am extremely careful to completely avoid certain genres.

I don’t bring this up in real life. But I caved because I simply couldn’t escape and saying “No, no, no, I hadn’t caught it, hadn’t seen it, was busy last night, must have missed it”, was bearing no fruit.

So I wearily confessed that though I watched plenty of nonsense through streaming services I never, absolutely never, not for one moment, ever tuned into free to air Network television. And particularly not reality TV of any stripe.

She couldn’t wrap her head around this.

So she started going through her list of favoured shows again.

What about Outback Knackers Yard? Scrapheap Housewives? Top Cupcakes? Fat Wars? Bigfoot Millionaire? Polyshaggerist Cat Fanciers? The Dildo Whisperer?

No? Really? Well what about…?

I started hiding in the toilet till we were called in.

Worst of all was that she knew. She knew I was going to say no, no, no. She had parsed the information given to her.

She just didn’t like the answer she was getting, and was determined to force a pretence of compliance from me.

We can’t have escapees from the crab pot. That just won’t do.

Dear Barristers, Don’t Act Like Cockwombles

We listened intently to the evidence, and then retired to our room each afternoon, where we all discussed with intense interest the latest information. And so, the long days passed.

The young man on trial was accused of stabbing a bouncer one night at a nightclub. To my growing fascination, I couldn’t help but notice the solicitor for the defence was an absolute cockwomble.

During one particular sitting, he hammered at the bouncer relentlessly for a good twenty minutes, about 18 minutes longer than he should have, till the judge FINALLY intervened - too late for our collective sanity.

He was utterly, drearily determined to force the man to say what he wanted him to say and was relentlessly rude in his grim folly. But the bouncer was bright enough and confident enough not to say what The Silk all but demanded.

Allow me to offer some free advice for all court solicitors everywhere — don’t make jurors dislike you.

We’re only human. On the basis of that grilling alone many would have found your client guilty, just because we really (really) didn’t like you and the bouncer came across as dignified and determined under your smarmy, arrogant onslaught.

We discussed it later in the room and came to the same conclusion. I think most of that jury was pretty switched on, and we were able to rise above those personal feelings. But if you weren’t very self-aware in those circumstances, it would have been easy to allow your personal feelings to sway you.

All the Kings and Queens in All the World

But worse was to come.

A couple of weeks into deliberations, not content with whining about her dog walking, not content with boring me to death with her televisual habits, our barking mad juror became fixated on a truly excruciatingly nonsensical idea - she began to grizzle about the trial actually taking place at all.

And then, a couple of days in, she made the incredible suggestion that the man on trial should just confess his guilt, so she could get back to her dog walking.

Why didn’t he just plead guilty? She bellyached. It’s not like he’d do much time. Probably. What a waste of the court’s time, our time HER time. Why didn’t he just plead guilty, she repeatedly whined. What a waste of resources, she carped.

The first time she made this breathtakingly ridiculous suggestion, I looked at her steadily and changed the subject. The second time I raised an eyebrow. And changed the subject.

The third time she started in, I pointed out that a criminal record could prevent the accused — a young man — from travelling and living in many countries overseas. That it could affect his public standing, his job, his future, his family. That it could and most likely would have lifelong repercussions.

Why didn’t he just plead guilty? She girned and gret once more. It was such a waste of time for everyone.

I could no longer hold my tongue. I took a breath.

Let me assure you, I began in measured tones.

Let me assure you of one thing.

If I am ever accused of a crime I did not commit, I will not care if every Prime Minister, President, Head of State, King, Queen or Emperor from every country in the entire world is forced to sit in that courtroom day in day out, morning noon and night for the rest of their entire lives.

I will NEVER plead guilty to a crime I did not commit.

I don’t care if the jury, the solicitor and the judge never leave that room again, I don’t care how important they think they are. I don’t care how much they get paid or what they do for a living.

I. Don’t. Care.

If I am innocent of a crime I am accused of I will never. Never. Absolutely NEVER. Plead guilty for another person’s convenience.

There was a silence for a moment, an awkward hush.

She stared at me from narrowed eyes in her doughy face. I looked right back at her. “Well. I was just saying…” She began.

The foreman spoke up “Let’s have another look at that video, I want to see the time stamp bit the solicitor mentioned”.

We all moved on.

But I never forgot this woman. She who thought a young man’s fate was less important than her precious dog walking time. She who represents far too many of the marching morons, dullards and dimbulbs of humanity.

The Verdict

In the event, the verdict was that there was no verdict. The case was declared a mistrial because the Queen’s Counsel — who was as haphazardly incompetent a prosecutor as you could imagine, and not at all what I’d expected from such a vaulted position — had apparently messed it up somehow. They were going to have to run it all again.

So we never did get to decide on the fate of that young man, but I think we’d have done so fairly and equitably, and on the basis of the evidence, provided we could shut down the dog walker from hell.

It left me feeling both better and worse at the trial by jury system. If you can gather together at least 10 people who are willing to give it their all, ten people of reasonable intelligence, willing to work together for the common good — you can expect a fair and reasonable outcome.

But what worries me sometimes when I consider it carefully is this: I’ve met more stupid people in my life, both online and off, than I would ever have believed existed. I have encountered more irrationality, ignorance and dedicated watchers of the Bold and The Beautiful Lovers than I could ever have imagined possible.

So what if our little microcosm of ten decent, capable persons was the exception?

What if most juries are composed mainly of Dog Walkers and Brown Suit Man? What if they are quite comfortable in their biases and self serving beliefs and would happily free someone, or send them to prison, based on a whim? What if they are not the exception, but the rule?

What happens then friends and neighbours?

What happens then?

***

26 years ago, OJ Simpson was acquitted: Timeline of his life and the sensational trial
Oct. 3 marks 26 years since O.J. Simpson was acquitted of the brutal murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and…abcnews.go.com

(I’ve somehow stuffed up the time stamp when updating this piece, it is not a new article, sorry about that!)