I didn't watch the fiction, but I was on a jury early last year in another type of case where the accused would probably look very plausible. It was the long-term sexual abuse of two young boys in the care of a man who was first the Head of a school for 'troublesome' boys, then moved on into Social Services. Given that the evidence was purely anecdotal and easily 30 years old, one would think that we 'muppets' would've dismissed the accusations within half an hour.
As it was, the trial lasted nine days and we found the accused comprehensively guilty on 12 of 13 counts in a trial which tested three now grown men to give what was humiliating and gruelling testimony. Our view was, from the get-go, three unrelated men, one with a family, were hardly likely to now bring up past coerced sodomy, masturbation, and fellatio for a bit of a laugh.
I was particularly struck by the tremendous common sense of our jurors, from a mature head teacher, young office workers, a carpenter, through to a 20 y.o. male student, who we appointed as our head. At the end of the trial, one of the male jurors then said he decided not to tell anyone in case he was thought prejudiced, but that he'd been abused as a young child by an uncle. He was one of the most calm, reasoned and objective members.
It sounds as if the film made juries appear idiotic and biased, while my experience from what I saw in the juries' waiting room and the way we - all complete strangers - discussed matters calmly and without any arguments in the jury room reflected anything but that. In that respect, I would say that the film has done juries a great disservice and that it will be far more damaging than any good towards encouraging women to come forward after being attacked. That is not in the service of women at all.
