Juries are the foundation of common law and have been used for centuries to decide factual matters before the court.

For years, jury research has sought to improve our understanding of how jurors reach conclusions, both individually and collectively. But we know little about how each particular case was decided: in Australia, jurors are prohibited from deliberating outside the jury room.

It is impossible to predict the jury’s verdict in criminal matters: the entire system is not completely transparent. This was clearly seen in a very high profile case just this year where a very surprising decision was made; I would love to be able to distinguish this.

SBS’s new program attempts to demystify the process. The Jury: Death on the Stairs follows the deliberations of 12 jurors as they hear nine days of evidence in a real, settled manslaughter trial.

Observing the trial and jury

Names, dates, locations and images from the original trial were changed to ensure that jurors could not view the outcome and to protect the people involved in the actual trial. These changes, of course, could change the jury’s decision-making process.

Actors are used to re-enact the case, using transcripts of the original case to simulate the real case as closely as possible. The judges are ordinary Australians who volunteered to take part in this experiment.

The case concerns the death of a man who was found under the stairs of the home he shared with his male partner.

Other factors the jury considered relevant included the 20-year age difference between the deceased and the defendant and that the defendant was Asian.

We hear the jurors’ pre-trial thoughts and motivations, and some biases and prejudices begin to emerge early on.

As the trial progresses, certain aspects of the defendant’s personality influence different members of the jury; some find commonalities that encourage them to be quite sympathetic, while others are quite skeptical about the defendant’s innocence. This seems less based on the evidence heard and instead directly reflects the juror’s personality and life experience.

Jurors, like a real jury, come from all walks of life, educational backgrounds, sexual preferences and ancestral groups. There are some big, dominant voices, as well as much quieter, more reserved ones.

What struck me as I watched was that many of the impressions the jury discussed and their interpretations of them were not based on evidence at all. They watch the defendant, trying to understand his guilt or innocence from the body language he looks at at certain times.

Neither of them are body language experts, but they think they can reliably guess how he’s feeling by observing him.

Some are also speculating wildly about what might happen and why. If real jurors do this, it’s alarming.

I have some questions

It’s hard to know how closely the filmmakers mirrored the original case: Was it a same-sex relationship, was there a large age difference, was the defendant Asian?

These factors are important because the jury weighs them and forms hypotheses with them in mind.

Another important question for me was how they chose the jury members. Was it random? If they were, these would not reflect the personalities of the actual jurors, and it is clear that personality and life experience greatly influence each person’s response to the case.

One juror asked the question: What if they come to a different conclusion than the original, real jury? What does this mean for the defendant?

In my opinion, they were wondering whether they found him not guilty of manslaughter and whether that had any legal significance.

The answer is no.

It is impossible to truly replicate a case. I even think the same jury could come to a different conclusion at a different time, depending on what’s been going on in their lives lately and other external factors. Whatever conclusion this jury reaches can neither harm nor help the real defendant.

But it’s definitely an interesting show and will give the viewer an idea of ​​what factors influence the judges the most.

It may also scare them a little. We like to think that juries make their decisions based on the evidence presented to them, but that does not appear to be the case, at least not early in the trial process.

Jurors focused on how the defendant lived his life and evaluated it both positively and negatively. The scientist in me thinks it would be great to repeat this experience, to see if the same or a different result is achieved under these controlled conditions.

I would also love to see more post-verdict access to actual jurors: it’s the only real way to gauge their thoughts and impressions while working on a case. But since that’s unlikely, this series is as close as it gets. It’s worth watching if you’re wondering how juries reach their sometimes seemingly inexplicable decisions.

The Jury: Death on the Stairs is on SBS and SBS On Demand from today.