The room where it happens: Jury questions answered

What have your phones done to your attention spans?

I can't even watch a YouTube video that's more than five minutes long without putting on two times speed.

I'm Angelo Voipier, the ABC's national technology reporter, and this is Brain Rot, a new series from Science Friction about the science of being chronically online and what it's doing to our brains.

We've found that taking photos can impair memory.

I data dumped my entire life into

this language model.

All that and more is coming up on BrainRot.

Find new apps each week on the ABC Listen app.

ABC Listen.

Podcasts, radio, news, music, and more.

The Mystery of Juries.

Your questions answered.

I'm ABC Investigative Reporter Rachel Brown.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

It's Wednesday, the 2nd of July, and it's the third day of jury deliberations.

Welcome to Mushroom Case Daily.

The small town mystery that's gripped the nation and made headlines around the world.

On the menu was Beef Wellington, a pastry filled with beef and a pate made of mushrooms.

At the heart of this case will be the jury's interpretation of Erin Patterson's intentions.

12 men and women have begun the process of determining Erin Patterson's fate.

It's a tragedy what happened.

I love them.

Okay, so as you may have figured out at this point, we're not daily anymore.

As we promised at the beginning of this, we would be daily every day that this trial is in court.

And with the jury retiring to consider their verdict, this isn't in court every day anymore.

So we'll be doing episodes like this one where we answer your questions about how the jury works.

We'll also be bringing you any questions that the jury has, anything they come back to the judge with and ask so they can think about it.

We'll be here.

We are playing a waiting game while the jury's out.

We do have lots of questions though, so I thought it would be a good time to jump in and answer them.

You can send us a question, mushroomcasedaily at abc.net.au

and we would love to hear from you and we will answer that question if it's something we can answer.

But Rach, before we get into this, just a quick recap.

We are sitting here with 12 jurors, right, in a room working out if Aaron Patterson is guilty or not guilty of murder and attempted murder, right?

That's right.

12 jurors, seven men, five women.

We started with 15 jurors, stocky, so there was a bit of a buffer if anyone got sick.

You might remember one was discharged early in the piece, I think it was week three, for potentially speaking with friends or family, which is a big no-no.

He was let go and then we had a spare two just in case anyone got sick.

They were balloted off on Monday.

Now in Australia, jurors can't be identified, so we can't give you any details any more than that seven to five jury pool, which has lessened the gender gap there.

Now during the trial and deliberations, they can only discuss the case with their fellow jurors.

And they can only do that in the deliberations room at court.

So they're sequestered at the moment in a hotel.

We don't know where.

They're not even allowed to talk about it at the hotel.

So the jury keepers, three liaisons, shall we say, they make sure that all the proper protocols are followed and they help the jurors get to court each day and they start deliberations at 10.30.

If you are wondering where the jurors are staying, Don't ask us.

Don't send us that email.

We won't answer it.

We don't know where they're staying.

As Rachel's mentioned, we can't identify jurors.

There is no interest in us finding out who these people are, what they do, anything like that, because they can't be identified.

So there's no point around that.

And Rachel, as they're coming to their verdict, as they're trying to work out, again, if Aaron Patterson is guilty or not guilty of murder and attempted murder, they all have to agree, right?

That's right.

It has to be unanimous.

They don't have to get there the same way.

They could get to their verdict using different evidence or different testimony or different exhibits, but they do have to be unanimous in their final decision.

Yeah.

Thank you, Rach.

We've had a lot of questions about jurors, juries, how all this works.

So we wanted to spend a bit of time just answering that for you.

Rach, I want to start here with a question from Anna in Kansas City.

Anna says, thanks so much for the podcast.

I'm a court reporter in the US.

Confusingly, not in the Australian sense, but a stenographer.

So that little typewriter thing that has the very few keys and very tricky to use.

Anna, congratulations on mastering that.

And Anna says it's been fascinating to listen to the podcast and learn the differences between the Australian and the American judicial system.

She's got many examples, but one of the questions that's been bugging her is: do jurors get paid?

And if so, how much?

In the US, or at least in Anna's state, it's a pittance, like $6 a day.

Employers are required by law to let people offer jury duty, but they're not required to pay their salary.

In Australia, do employers still pay them?

$6 a day.

Anna, that'd barely get your coffee here.

Yeah, they do, Anna.

They get paid $40, Australian, for the first six days and then $80 a day after that.

Now, then their employer is expected to fill the gap between $80 and what they would normally be paid for that day.

So quite an onus on employers, but that's part of our system.

It's, you know, so we get people of all kinds,

you know, a wide pool who can sit for jury duty.

and not kind of lose out themselves.

This is treated like a job.

And the juries commission monitors hours and workloads and breaks to make sure that all of that is above board.

Yeah.

There are, you know, you can apply for an exclusion from jury duty if you are, for example, self-employed.

So if you're someone who's paying yourself and you're not going to be able to pay yourself while you're doing jury duty, the jury's commission's kind of like a little clause in there.

There's a few other clauses as well for things that you can be excluded from jury duty from.

But yeah, that's kind of how it works.

You know, you have to getting that, getting that kind of gap filled up by the employers.

I wonder whether we would be excluded now or if we were all called up, they'd see us and go, nope, no way.

I would probably try and exclude myself.

Thank you, Rach.

Anna, wonderful question.

Thank you.

Another question here from Beck.

Rach.

Beck says, Hi, Rachel and Stocky.

I'm from Perth Australia and absolutely loving the podcast.

It gives such a clear and engaging overview of our legal system.

I recently had my final semester uni exams and always look forward to tuning in to the latest episode during my study breaks.

I have a quick question about juries.

What is the process for deciding who the four person is?

Is this something the jury members decide amongst themselves or is the four person appointed by the judge?

So the four person is kind of like the team leader of the jurors.

They were elected right at the start of the trial.

Rach, how did that work?

That's right.

Good luck with your exam spec.

But that's right, Stocky.

They're like the manager.

of the jury, but they are decided by their peers, by their fellow jurors.

And the day that that happened, they all filed back into court.

And the judge said, have you chosen a four-person?

And they said, yes, we have.

Yeah.

And that four person gets like a special seat in the

same seat instead of just musical chairs every day.

Yeah, that's actually that's something we I don't think we have spoken about at all: is that the jury, they're in the jury box.

There's you know 15 seats or however many seats in there, they all fill up.

Um, yeah, they sit wherever they want.

Sometimes they're in a different day, sometimes they're sitting next to different people, sometimes they're sitting next to the same person all the time, which is which is quite cute.

Um, but the four-person always sitting in the same seat, yeah.

Front,

furthest on the left, closest to the judge.

Yep.

Um, thank you, Rach.

Thank you, Beck.

Wonderful question.

Uh, Question here from Jim, Mary Beck in Melbourne.

Hi, folks.

Love the pod.

Can you just clarify for us the jury keepers?

These are the people who are basically keeping an eye on the jury, as you mentioned, Rach.

Are they court officers, part of the sheriff's office, police?

Is it a paid position?

How do you become one?

Is it like being a Justice of the Peace and you get nominated?

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has never heard of them before.

Jem, it's not a dedicated role.

Jury keepers are usually either associates, tip staffs, or jury's Victoria staff members.

Sometimes I've heard that it's almost always the judge's two associates.

In this case, one of them, as we mentioned before, is the tip staff for Justice Beale.

That's Stuart Hastings.

Now the TIP staff, we also had a question about this.

This is kind of an administrative position in a sense.

Helps the judge with keeping order in the courtroom.

perhaps legal research, administration,

those formalities that need to be done.

And the tip staff, you know, they will be, if there's someone standing up in the courtroom or like not getting their seat quickly enough or causing any sort of disruption in the room, they will be the person who acts and says, Look, you, you need to get out or you need to sit down, or you know, they're kind of directing and managing that kind of stuff.

And I think historically, they're usually ex-army or ex-police.

Yeah.

And the judge's associates, that's kind of like a similar kind of assistant, right?

Yeah, they sit in front of the judge and they help him, you know,

keep on top of the rivers of evidence coming in.

I think, you you know, the transcripts,

the protocols for the day, the administration side of things.

Yep, great.

Thank you, Rach.

Thank you, Jim.

Wonderful question about the jury keepers.

Again, I learned about the jury keepers like five days ago.

This is all new to me as well.

So it's been wonderful to learn about all of this with you.

Question here, Rach, from Troy in Adelaide.

Hey, Rachel and Stocky, loving the pod.

We've been hearing a lot in the last week about what the jury should consider while deliberating, but I'm curious to know more about the actual deliberations themselves.

Are the jury directed to discuss the case in any particular way?

Is there an agenda set?

Is someone nominated to chair the deliberations?

Is there a regular poll of the jury taken to establish how close the jury is to a unanimous decision?

Or is all this left up to the jury to figure out on their own?

Good question, Troy.

A lot of the some of the clauses of this question are still a mystery to me, and I think it has to be.

Things like, is there a regular poll of the jury taken?

I'm not sure, and I think it's up to the particular jury.

You know, they'll all have their own

characters depending on what the alleged crime is and who the makeup of the jury is.

I'm not sure about the poll, you know, whether they'd test the waters every few days.

I guess it would be up to them.

I don't think they have any agenda as such to work through.

I think they can do it in whatever manner.

they like and what suits them.

But it was interesting in this case, and I'm not sure if it happens in others, but Justice Beale has provided a document to help them work through the important questions because he acknowledged there was just this mountain of evidence and I think 125 exhibits.

So remember he gave them a binder and I would have loved one

of the chronology and a way to manage

the density of the questions and evidence they'll have to consider.

So he put it in chronological order.

He put the exhibits in chronological order.

He said, you know, I hope it'll help you managing the information you've received over the past eight weeks.

He also said, remember that you might be thinking, oh, this is supposed to help us manage the information.

And here's another 86 pages of it.

But he said, it's not homework.

You don't have to plow through it.

It's just something you can dip back into if you're wondering, oh, I think something happened in May 2022.

What was that again?

And you can just dive back into this folder.

Yep.

Something that I spoke about last week, we both had a chat about, you know, the judge's charge went for, you know, a number of days.

I think it was five days or something in the end, the judge's charge where Justice Beer was giving his directions to the jury, things they should consider, things they should keep in mind, how to treat certain things at certain points.

And while that was going for a long time, while he was presenting it to the jury and just talking through it, the jury will also have a transcript of that.

So if there's things they're wondering about, they will have the opportunity to dive back into certain points of that and just go, oh, look, what was the discussion around the plates again?

And they can jump back in and they'll be able to see in that section about the plates, in his judge's charge, all the various relevant bits of transcript, and then from there, dive further back in

if that's something that they would find helpful.

and like the game of phones for example which hurt our heads in early days trying to work all that out there was a spreadsheet done i love a good spreadsheet and so they'd be able to go back and and look at this spreadsheet yeah yeah absolutely uh thank you rach and thank you troy for that wonderful question i have a question here from adam who is 12 in canterbury in new zealand uh he says hi what can the jury do when they're not deliberating can they watch tv or do they just have to sit around the hotel

um excellent question they can't watch free-to-air TV because they're not allowed to watch the news or anything like that.

So I think that's been drilled into them by now.

I don't know if any of them even would if they had a television in their hotel room.

I'm not sure whether the TVs have been taken out, rock star style.

I'm just not sure.

They probably can watch streaming services.

So the jury keepers would monitor all that and make sure they're not watching anything they shouldn't.

But otherwise, it would just be, what, maybe...

read some books or play cards like we're doing in the overflow room as we're waiting and and just chat to each other.

Yep.

If they've got a pile of books that have sat unread for a while, I'm sure that has found its way with them to the hotel where they are sequestered while they're deliberating in this trial.

We've got a similar question, sort of a similar vein here from Mia Oren, who's listening in from Texas.

Mia says, thank you so much for such detailed.

interesting updates.

What are the lawyers doing while the jury deliberates?

Are they sitting around with the judge waiting for a question to come in?

I don't think they're sitting with the judge.

I think he does his own thing, but I know the prosecution is waiting in a room in court, and I've seen the defence team out and about in town, but not too far, you know, hanging out in the cafes or in local shops, doing the same as us, really, pacing around, biting their nails, waiting like a coiled spring.

And they might, I mean, they might, like us, be doing some work on some other cases as they wait, but albeit distractedly.

Yeah, yeah, I'm very busy with all of the other legal matters that I'm advising people on at the moment.

So yeah, no, it's give me something to do.

You could now, actually.

Thank you, Rach.

Thank you, Mia, for that wonderful question.

I will also say that, you know, while we are waiting in court, we're in the room that we've been in

with like a link to the courtroom.

The courtroom is now closed.

So there's no one in the courtroom.

No one's sitting in there.

It's not like the judge is just sitting in his chair, kind of spinning around while everyone else sits at the bar table.

They're in various rooms, various spots around at the moment.

Question here, Rach, from Kate.

Kate says, hi, Rachel, Stocky and team.

My daughter and I have loved listening to the pod every evening.

We've been travelling around Malaysia and India.

We've now been up with my husband and parents and have brought them onto the Mushroom Case daily ritual.

Can you please answer one of our many, many questions?

Is there a minimum amount of time the jury must spend in deliberations?

For example, were they to come back with a verdict on Tuesday morning?

Could they be admonished for not taking enough time to carefully consider the evidence presented?

Kate, I'm not sure there is a minimum time, and I don't know whether they'd be admonished.

I guess it depends on what's happened during the trial, for one, because I know in another case that I've covered, the jury would talk after court of a nighttime, which I found interesting that they'd catch up on the day and talk about some of the issues that day.

So, I don't know in this case whether they've been talking at night or just leaving and going home.

So, I don't know how much they have to work through because, as we've said a lot, there's been rivers of evidence in this case.

There's a lot of really heavy issues to consider, both legal and in testimony.

So they do have a lot to work through and that's why I think Justice Beale helped them out with that chronology.

So I think their job includes working through all the issues, but I just don't know how long that will take.

But no, I don't think legally there's any minimum time they have to deliberate for.

Cool.

Thank you, Kate.

Thank you, Rach.

Another one one here, similar kind of timelines.

This one's from Amelia.

Hi, Rachel and Stocky.

I've been a listener from the start and absolutely love the pod.

Admire your stamina and endurance after nearly two months of reporting on the case.

I have a question about the jury.

How many hours a day are they deliberating for?

And what's the maximum amount of time that they have?

Amelia, there's not a maximum time either.

There's no deadline or cut off.

They start deliberating in the morning at 10.30 and go to 1 lunchtime.

And then they start again at 2.15 and go to 4.15.

So they're their daily hours.

If they need to deliberate this Saturday, they will.

Not sure what hours.

I'm assuming it's the same.

But if they need, if they're still going on Sunday, they're still sequestered, but they won't deliberate.

That would resume on Monday.

But I think it's as long as it takes, as long as it takes to get to this unanimous verdict.

And like we said, it doesn't matter how they get there.

They just need to get to the same destination.

Yeah.

Thank you, Rach, and thank you, Amelia.

Another one here from Laura Rach.

Hi, Rach and Stocky.

Bit of a random one.

Can the jurors become friends?

I would assume after nine plus weeks together they would know each other quite well and may become close.

Can they continue a friendship or continue seeing each other outside of the trial once it's finished?

I don't think there's any laws against friendship.

So I think I assume some of them would.

You know, before they were sequestered, I'd often see some sitting together, having lunch together.

And it's a pressure cooker environment, right, Stocky?

Like, they're dealing with a very heavy case.

These people are all they have, really, to talk about this really sensitive issue.

They can't talk to friends and family.

They're all they have.

So I'm assuming some strong bonds would have been formed.

Maybe there's people that annoy them.

I don't know.

It's like us.

You know, we've been out in this really kind of collegial,

lovely.

you know, bonds that we're making with other people from other networks that we don't usually work with.

So, Laura, I'm pretty sure that, yeah, there's no rules against friendship.

And I'm assuming that many of these friends would continue after this trial.

Yeah, well, Stuart Hastings, the tip staff who keeps order in the court, does keep a very tight courtroom and keep order in the courtroom.

I haven't seen him telling off anyone for being friends with other people.

So yeah, so it'd be nice to think that they are.

They are obviously

friends.

I did hear like they were, I could hear some giggling before they came in one day.

Someone had obviously made a joke and I heard him kindly turn around and go, shh.

as in remember remember what you're walking into.

So I think, yeah, I think they like each other.

That's very very nice.

Wonderful question, Laura.

Thank you, Rach.

One here from Anita in Melbourne.

Anita says, job well done, getting to this point, Rachel and Stocky, and to your families too.

Speaking of families, in trials like this where jurors are away from their families while deliberating, is there additional support for their families' needs?

Also, do jurors have access to a service like an employee assistance program where they can kind of discuss some of the things that they've heard or been exposed to that might affect them in some way?

Yeah, thanks, Anita.

I found this question really interesting because I didn't know.

So I did some research on this and yes there is a program and it's because

you know while some people might find jury service a fulfilling experience and leave with a sense of achievement, you know they've helped the administration of justice, some will find it really distressing because of the issues that they're dealing with.

So they might need time to process it.

And so there is a free confidential counselling service, a juror support service, and that's staffed by qualified counsellors and registered psychologists.

So I think you can get up to six one-hour sessions, you know, over phone or video link.

With support for the families, that's a big role of the jury keepers.

So if there's an emergency or a message that one of their family members needs passed on, they would call one of those three jury keepers.

Great.

Thank you, Rach.

Yeah, really helpful, really interesting.

Good to know that there is some support for them there as well.

Wonderful question, Anita.

Thank you, Rach.

One here from Eleanor in London.

Hi, Rachel Rachel and Stocky.

Thank you so much for making a fascinating podcast.

I'm learning so much, not just about this case, but about the justice system in general.

You and me both, Eleanor.

I have a question for you.

How do you and the other journalists find out the verdict?

Will you sit in the empty court, hang out in the courtroom until the staff tell you the jury ready to give their verdict?

Or is it done electronically now via email?

It's done via email.

So this is why we're all quite jumpy.

You know, we've all made sure our notifications are on, that they're working properly.

I've done a couple of tests.

But even yesterday, every notification that came through my heart would leap just in case it was a verdict back.

And there was Stocky, one of the reporters in the overflow room, yesterday I heard her go, and I'm like, oh God, it's back.

And it's like, no, she just lost her hand at Uno, you know?

So it's every, it's our nerves afraid.

I go through waves of

anxiety is the word I'm looking for.

Where like I'll kind of forget what we're doing and I'll have a nice time just doing some work and then I'll be like, oh, that's right, we're waiting for this thing and it will slowly build and I'll have to like go for a walk or something.

Yeah, it's going to be really tense while we wait for this.

And yeah, we'll just get an email and then we will

try to pile into the courtroom

and watch the jurors return and look at how everyone's reacting to the verdict when it is delivered.

But yeah, we're just hanging around.

We're sitting in the media room, in the court, playing cards,

just talking absolute rubbish a lot of the time, keeping ourselves busy.

For the record, I'm working.

I have a lot to catch up on because we've been here for 10 weeks, so I wish I could play Uno, but no.

Yeah, I haven't played cards yet, but hopefully, yeah, if we get a few days into this, I might have a bit of time.

Wonderful question, though, Eleanor.

Thank you, Rach.

And our final question today here is from Brian.

Hi, folks.

Love the pod.

Been listening from Queensland.

Was wondering, once the case is over, are the jury allowed to talk to others or the media about the case if they choose to?

Also, are they allowed to seek out and speak to other jurors about the case?

No way, Jose.

That's just Australia's system.

So they definitely can't talk to the media about the case ever.

And I know in America that's different, that jurors are allowed to do interviews, which I'd be fascinated by.

You know, what's the temperature in the room?

How do they work through issues, psychologically, how they're faring?

But no, they can't give media interviews here in Australia.

As for their family and friends, I think they can speak generally, you know, they might be able to say, look, it was this case, but they can't reveal the mysteries of that room.

What happens in the room stays in the room.

They can still talk to their fellow jurors about it if they remain friends with them.

But the intricacies of those deliberations have to remain a secret.

Yep.

Wonderful question, Brian.

Thank you, Rach.

Thank you all for sending in your questions, mushroomcase daily at abc.net.au.

We do need to be really careful about what we answer.

So there's still limitations on what we can and can't talk about at the moment.

If you've sent in a question and we haven't answered it, you know, there's usually a pretty good reason for it.

I know it is, you know, not ideal if you've sent something in and you've thought about it really carefully and we haven't gotten to it.

I've seen the memes.

It's fine.

But look, we are getting through them all.

We're having a look at them.

If we can answer it, we really want to.

But oftentimes, you know, this, a lot of what we've gone through in this episode, we can only do now because the jury learnt a lot of this over the last couple of days.

You know, when, you know, when you're looking at, you know, who's been balloting off and how that process is going to work, they only found out how that worked, you know, on Monday when it happened in front of them.

Like if the four-person could be balloted off, for example.

Yeah.

We had to wait until they knew before we told you.

Exactly.

Yeah.

We can't get ahead of what they know, but they now know all of this as they are going through and experiencing it.

So we can bring it to you.

Even though they're not supposed to be listening to Mushroom Case Daily, it's just an extra level of protection and insulation on the process.

So

it's able to stay just kind of pure throughout.

Rach, thanks so much for taking us through all of this.

Thanks, Jocky.

And thanks for the questions.

They're really good.

I mean, I learned some things myself researching for this.

It's been great to go through them all and, yeah, help people understand this process a little bit more.

We will be, while the jury is out deliberating, we will be back in your feed if the jury has any questions.

Other than that, we'll be dropping an episode every couple of days or so.

Make sure you've got the notifications on in your various podcast app.

Just keep frantically refreshing and we will appear when we have something for you.

Of course, when there is a verdict, we will be straight in your feed with an episode on that, the mood in the the courtroom, what happened, all of those things as well.

So please make sure you are following Mushroom Case Daily on the ABC Listen app firstly, but if not that, on whatever app you're using.

And if you're on a different app, please leave us a review, give us a rating.

It makes it easier for other people to find us and, you know, help understand a bit more about this process as well.

Mushroom Case Daily is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News.

It's presented by me, Rachel Rachel Brown, and producer Stephen Stockwell.

Our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson, and a huge thanks to our True Prime colleagues, our commissioning executive producer Tim Roxborough and supervising producer Yasmin Parry.

This episode was produced on the lands of the Gunai Kernai people.

In 1999, a well-to-do young American wandered into the great sandy desert alone.

What hope has he got?

He went out there to find meaning, but unwittingly sparked an international media storm and one of the biggest searches Australia had ever seen.

I'm looking for a body.

At a time when so many of us feel lost, what's the most extreme thing you do to feel found?

Coming to ABC Listen on July 2nd, Expanse, Nowhere Man.

In the meantime, catch up on all the previous seasons, search for Expanse on the ABC Listen app.