Did broadcasting the Gilroy sentencing "open up" Scottish justice?

A slightly uncertain stage-presence, yesterday Lord Bracadale was recorded passing sentence on David Gilroy, convicted of murdering Suzanne Pilley. The law requiring the court to pass a life sentence, the judge determined that the “punishment part” of Gilroy’s sentence – before which he would is ineligible for parole – be set at 18 years. It was a quiet, precise decision on sentence, not a heavy, declamatory verdict viewers saw. No terrorising Braxfield, Bracadale’s delivery was understated, without many rhetorical flourishes, or tart moral denunciation of the prisoner’s actions. The hellfire tirade a hanging judge, it wasn’t.

Is this the “opening up” of Scottish justice? Did the footage afford an insight into the life of courts which a text transcript could not? Colour me sceptical, for a couple reasons. Firstly, what we saw was a bare – very bare – outcome of a process, not the process itself. For understandable reasons of sensitivity, the camera was perched in the empty jury box and fixed on the bench. The judge addresses the room, which was, I gather, thronging with people, but might have well been empty but for Bracadale, all we could discern in frame. The selectivity imposed by the camera even transfigured this event into untruth, of a sort. 

Of the evidence in chief and cross-examination, claim and counter-claim, summing up, and verdict which brought David Gilroy to “this sorry pass”, a sentencing statement affords not much insight at all. Remember that Bracadale’s statement was the also the conclusion of the sentencing hearing that morning, during which his defence representatives would have made submissions in mitigation. Again, none of this was shown, and the sentence was largely “unpicked” from its context – just as it is when the judicial prose appears in newspapers, or is read out by actors on the telly. 

My second qualm and note of caution respects selectivity. The broadcasting of Gilroy’s sentencing was owed in great part to the press’s interest in murder trials in general, and atypical murder trials in particular, STV petitioning the Lord President for permission to film in court. I don’t mean to be obtuse. Of course, I can understand why the media have a heightened interest in particular cases, and why others are neglected. It seems to me important, however, that we keep in mind the extent of the discrepancy separating proceedings provoking passionate media attention, and the day-to-day “reality” of the Scottish criminal justice system taken as a whole.

The latest (2011) statistics on court proceedings in Scotland show that some 137,000 people were prosecuted in Scottish courts during 2009-10. Scottish Government statisticians estimate 88% of those proceeded against were convicted of some charge. Of those convicted of some offence that year (120,772 people), which courts undertook the work? What percentage of cases are in the High Court, do you think? With juries, or without them? How many judges sitting alone? The pie chart below shows the breakdown for that year, which is not untypical for the past decade.

 

Notice that, despite the dominant impression the institution leaves on the public consciousness, jury cases made up just 4% of all Scottish cases where a charge is proved against the accused. To reorientate that detail another way, and to sharpen its surprise for those apt to prate on about the scandal of European trial by judges, 96% of people convicted of offences in Scotland see nary hide nor hair of a lay juror, except perhaps, as they dally about the court lobby.

If you are really interested in understanding the Scottish justice system in sum, you won’t do so by filming a murder trial in the High Court of Justiciary. On those 2009/10 figures again, homicide convictions constituted 115 of the 741 produced by the High Court: just 15.5% of them. Set in the broad context of Scottish criminal justice, murder convictions made up just 0.095% of all convictions that year. If we wish to understand Scottish justice aright, and know its day-to-day processes for what they are, STV would have to show as much enthusiasm for sending its crews into Justice of the Peace courts, and showing sheriffs working alone, as it expended on gaining a clip of Lord Bracadale yesterday, passing sentence.