Jury notes and witnesses…
Welcome to week 18 of the court visit breakdown!
Here is your backstory:
This was a Crown Court case
I observed the next stage of the murder trial that I had observed last week
The beginning of this trial today was very interesting to observe, particularly from a law student perspective.
Initially, the judge received a note from the jury asking about evidence that the nurse was giving as a witness in the witness box. Once the judge had received this note, he read it out to both the prosecution and defence in the absence of the jury. Both the judge and counsel then discussed the answer to the question and how and when it should be answered.
In this instance, the note was a medical question relating to the heart rate of the victim during the time he was in hospital, and whether that would have been an indication as to his recovery. Both counsel and judge agreed that this question would be answered when the witness was back in the witness box. The judge then explained this to the jury when they were called back in and reassured the jury that the question will be answered in due course.
Subsequently, the witness was brought to the witness box and questioned.
After the attack on the victim, the victim was in hospital for 5 days before he passed. Therefore, the nurse was questioned regarding her observations of the victim during that time.
One of the specific moments that the witness was questioned about, was the symptoms of the victim when he arrived at the hospital. She explained that despite obvious bruising, he seemed able to speak and there weren’t signs of anything too major to be concerned about. She did explain that the victim had a fractured arm, however, from her observations she described the arm to be ‘woody’ which is a medical description of a compound fracture. She sent the victim to the Orthopaedics. She was then later surprised to hear that the victim had been discharged, as a compound fracture is a serious and alarming fracture.
It was later that the victim went into resuscitation and passed. Although, I have not been able to observe the whole of the murder trial, I can infer that from the defence perspective, there is an element of medical negligence that may have taken place. This breaks the chain of causation as to why the victim passed and therefore, reducing the liability of the defendant.
Thank you for reading this week!