Is justice done?

Text 1: A Morning at the Assizes, by Edmund Lyle

An original essay written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

I attended the Assizes at Wexborough on Tuesday, having never seen an English court at work, and having been told that it was the finest machinery for justice in the world. The hall was crowded and hot, and the judge, in his scarlet and his great wig, sat so high above us that he seemed less a man than a weather-vane, turning his head slowly from counsel to witness and back.

The first prisoner was a boy of fourteen, so small that the warder had to lift him onto a box before he could be seen above the rail of the dock. He was charged with stealing a pair of boots from a cart in the market. He had no counsel. He said he had been cold, and when the judge asked whether he understood the nature of the oath he said he did not know what an oath was, and some of the gentlemen in the gallery laughed. The whole business took eleven minutes. He was sentenced to six months’ hard labour, and he looked round the court, I think, for his mother.

The second case was that of a respectable corn merchant, charged with defrauding a widow of three hundred pounds by forged accounts. He had two barristers, who spoke for most of the afternoon, and a long procession of gentlemen came to say what an upright man he was. He was fined, and walked out of the court in his own good coat to shake hands with his friends upon the steps. I suppose the law was obeyed in both cases. I am not certain that justice was. A pair of boots cost a boy six months; three hundred pounds cost a merchant an afternoon.

Text 2: Are We Sure?, by Ruth Ingham

An original twentieth-century memoir.

In the spring of 1994 I served on a jury at the Crown Court for a trial that lasted four days. A man in his twenties was accused of breaking into a house and stealing jewellery while the family were away. I had never been in a court before, and I remember being surprised by how ordinary it all was: the strip lights, the water jugs, the barristers yawning behind their hands during the long police evidence about timings.

In the jury room, eight of us thought at first that he had done it. He had a previous conviction, which the judge had told us to ignore and which none of us could quite forget. He had been seen near the street. He had no convincing explanation of where he had been. But the jewellery had never been found, the fingerprint evidence was ‘inconclusive’, and the only witness who placed him at the house had admitted she was not wearing her glasses. We argued for nine hours. A retired bus driver called Len kept asking the same question: ‘Are we sure? Not do we think so. Are we sure?’

In the end, we were not sure, and we found him not guilty. I watched his face when the verdict was read, and I could not tell whether it was the face of an innocent man or a lucky one. For a long time that troubled me. I may have helped a burglar walk free. But I have come to think that Len was right, and that this is what justice is supposed to feel like: uncomfortable, uncertain, and careful. A system that sent people to prison because twelve strangers thought they probably did it would trouble me far more.

‘Both writers question whether justice is truly done.’

How far do you agree with this statement?

In your answer you should:

• discuss what we learn about the trials each writer witnesses
• explain how far you agree that both writers question whether justice is done
• compare the ways the writers present the courts and their verdicts.

Support your response with quotations from Text 1 and Text 2.