A Case to Answer by David Bevan

Author:David Bevan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: book, LAZ, HIS004000
ISBN: 9781743055687
Publisher: Wakefield Press
Published: 2018-05-02T16:00:00+00:00

5

The trial

Polyukhovich used his walking stick to make his way slowly up the few steps which took him to the first level of the Samuel Way building. Maria was by his side. Defence solicitor Craig Caldicott was standing there. He asked how his client was feeling; Polyukhovich shrugged his shoulders and said a few quiet words.

The rain which had been falling steadily through the night and morning had cleared, leaving the city a humid place. Courtroom three was warm and, despite its size, quickly became stuffy as a large group of potential jurors was ushered in. Polyukhovich took his seat in the dock next to his interpreter. Maria found a seat in the body of the court, but was brought down to sit with the defence in the front row.

Court staff had called in about seventy people to make up the jury pool, many more than were usually deemed necessary. They filled what was normally a drab, silent public gallery with colour and a low hum of conversation. Spaces not taken up by people were filled with books and folders containing notes and transcripts, the baggage of a long court case. Most of the journalists and artists covering the case were forced to stand along one wall. The defence lawyers, sitting at the bar table, were poring over the list of names of people in the jury pool.

Justice Cox’s associate read out the two charges, which had to be translated. Polyukhovich pleaded not guilty to having taken part in the pit killing and the murder of the miller’s daughter and the two children.

The judge told the potential jurors that there was no need to follow the convention of reading out the list of witnesses who would give evidence. The jurors were unlikely to know any of them, since nearly all were either from interstate or overseas. If they knew any of the lawyers or the accused, however, they should disqualify themselves. He added that the trial was expected to take five or six weeks and then asked if anyone wanted to say anything.

More than half the people in the gallery rose as one to their feet. Faced with this extraordinary sight, Justice Cox said that the response wasn’t what he’d hoped for, and that he would need a good reason to dismiss any of them from the jury selection. Three people said they knew either the defence lawyers or the defendant and were excused immediately. As for the rest, Cox said he would hear their reasons for not wanting to sit on the trial one at a time. Thirty people walked up to the judge during the next half hour. One woman tried twice. Only the judge’s staff sitting near him and the court-appointed reporter could have heard what was said. When all the potential jurors had resumed their seats, Cox announced that the vast majority of objections were of the usual kind, business and personal reasons, which weren’t satisfactory. A hand­ful of people had told him they had family in Ukraine or Poland, and one middle-aged man claimed he’d spent his early childhood in Holland.

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