Thank you.
Hello. My name is Cherish De Moura. I would like to walk you through my experience of being a juror, from the selection process to serving on the jury to taking part in deliberations to life after jury duty.
Throughout I will highlight specific stressors and rank them on a scale of one to 10 to help you get an idea of what it's like to take part in a jury process and its long-lasting impacts.
I'll begin with the selection process.
In late 2012, I was summoned for jury duty in Toronto, and my stress level was zero. In fact, I was excited and proud to take part. In the courtroom, among hundreds of others, I was selected to interview with a detective to see if I would be a good fit for a coroner's inquest. We were told that it may be a year-long case. It would be high profile, and this jury would hear evidence and make recommendations so that a future death under similar circumstances could be avoided.
At the time, I was working as a senior adviser with the federal government. I managed the office of a director general, issue-managed contentious and sensitive matters, and provided recommendations for their resolution. I believed that my work made me an ideal candidate for this jury panel, and I was selected.
The authority of the detective and the pressure of wanting to do well in the interview made this a stress level five.
Now I'll move on to serving on the jury.
I began my jury duty in January 2013. Knowing that I might be there for an entire year, I treated this experience as if it were a new job. The first-day jitters, not knowing what to expect, and meeting new people made this a stress level three. At this point, I was still excited.
I will now give you some details about the case so that you have an understanding of what I heard and saw in my new job, beginning with the inquest synopsis and my experience.
The coroner's inquest into the death of Ashley Smith took place from January to December 2013. This was a case of a 19-year-old woman with mental health issues dying while in the custody of Correctional Service of Canada. It was a high-profile case that garnered nationwide attention because it crossed many provincial boundaries.
A coroner's inquest is unlike a regular trial. It is composed of only five jurors. We were charged with answering five pertinent questions about the deceased and making recommendations to avoid future deaths in similar circumstances.
Also, what separated this case from most was that we had the opportunity to speak to every witness who took the stand. At the outset, the coroner told us that we speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves. This was a responsibility that I did not take lightly. I spoke to several correctional guards at the institutions where Ms. Smith was held, as well as their supervisors, wardens, and senior management from regional and national headquarters, including the commissioner for CSC. I questioned her doctors and nurses, leading experts in the field of youth mental health, women and psychiatry, and Ms. Smith's mother. That was stress level 10.
Every day for a year, we walked past the numerous lawyers in the court room, national and local media, and the general public. For each witness who took the stand, we watched and listened to examinations and cross-examinations. Then the tables were turned and the courtroom listened to the jury conduct our own questioning. It is not a normal environment. There's constant pressure to process all of the information and then immediately ask someone questions about their role in another person's death. This resulted in stress level nine.
There were 116 witnesses in total, and over 80,000 pages of evidence were examined. We read and discussed how Ms. Smith would hide broken glass in her cavities, then use that glass to make ligatures to choke herself. We heard numerous audio recordings of conversations between correctional staff and management. We were shown videos depicting the treatment of Ms. Smith. Some of them were violent, showing numerous uses of force against her, Ms. Smith being sprayed with pepper spray by guards, and guards entering her cell in full riot gear. Ms. Smith was in various emotional states, such as sadness, fear, distress, anger, and frustration.
The constant ongoing stress of watching, reading, and hearing someone suffer raised the stress to level 10.
Next was the death video.
There are few videos that I can recall to this day, but there is one in particular, the death video. We were told the week before to prepare to watch it the next Monday. It was a daunting feeling, having to watch someone die—not in a movie, but for real. Having the weekend to think about it, how does one prepare themselves? That was stress level eight.
From a layperson's perspective, you see a young woman hunched over herself, pinned between a concrete wall and metal bed. You hear laboured breath-like noises that make you think she's gasping for air. We watched it twice in court. The second time was with a respiratory expert on the stand. His function was to explain the last seconds of Ms. Smith's life as she died from ligature strangulation and positional asphyxia.
We'd watch a few seconds and pause the video, and then he would explain exactly what was happening in her body. We'd watch a few more seconds, and again pause as he explained how the position of her body being pinned between the wall on the bed is problematic because...I don't remember now. We'd continue the video.
Watching it in this way was clinical, cold. We jurors were just regular members of the public. We didn't know that what we originally thought were breaths, gasps for air, were in fact her body expelling its last gases. She was dead many gasps ago. The impact level was 8.
In the early months of the inquest, we visited Kitchener's Grand Valley Institution for Women. I stood in the very cell where she died. Standing there, looking around, I felt something within me, and it was eerie. The stress level was 10.
On another occasion, we visited a psychiatric hospital that she attended. Seeing a bed where mentally ill are strapped down and restrained in an unsympathetic room was highly unsettling. The stress level was 9.
I remember there was an older correctional guard who took the stand. He recounted emotional moments he shared with Ms. Smith prior to her death. At the end of his testimony I looked around, and there was not a dry eye in the courtroom, especially one of CSC's lawyers, a man in his 50s, crying so hard his head was in his hands. It was clear how real the impacts are of one human life on another. How can one not be impacted? None of us in the room, except for that one guard on the stand, had even met this young woman. The impact level was 9.
Others on the stand took the loss of life so flippantly that it angers me to this day—those who could have done better but didn't, those who should have done something but refused. So many said, “I did the best that I could.” Those words haunt me. Since then I've played and replayed conversations of what more I could have said to those on the stand. The stress level was 10.
In terms of impacts, I didn't realize I was being stressed out, not at first anyway, but psychological stresses have a way of becoming physical. I experienced nightmares, recurrent thoughts, loss of sleep, loss of balance, weight loss. Grinding of teeth at night escalated to clenching of teeth during the day, which led to headaches. I had a general feeling of anger all the time, and the feeling of helplessness.
One morning near the end of the inquest, the jury began talking about the case's effects on our health. It turned out I wasn't the only one having trouble. That day the courts brought in two counsellors for us. We talked as a group for perhaps an hour. The counsellors seemed inexperienced to deal with what we were going through. At the end, I left with a list of sad movies that were intended to help me cry. That was insufficient. The helplessness level was 1.
In terms of the deliberations, the jury was there to answer five questions. The first four were simple, as they were presented in evidence. Who was the deceased? When did she die? Where did she die? What was the cause of death? However, the most controversial was the final question: by what means did she die—suicide, homicide, accidental, natural, or undecided? It weighed heavily on me, as I felt that it was the most impactful. The stress level was 9.
After participating in the process for a year, I felt a high amount of pressure to do a good job, give the right answer, give the best recommendations. After a week of deliberations and composing recommendations, the jury came up with 104 recommendations. The stress level was 10.
In terms of life after jury, when the inquest ended, for my civic duty I got a thank you and a goodbye. Something so out of the ordinary that no one could have prepared me for, that had consumed my life for a year and would have impacts so great and long-lasting, was over.
How was I to deal with the mental and physical concerns I had as a result of a year-long jury case? I didn't know who to turn to, so I created my own support system. I saw my family doctor and was referred to a psychiatrist and a psychologist. I began seeing a massage therapist, osteopath, and naturopath. I had a team of medical professionals helping me, anyone I thought could make a positive impact on my health, with thousands of dollars paid from my own pocket.
Here are my recommendations for your study. Number one, give jurors tools in advance so they can recognize the signs and symptoms of stress early. This can be as simple as an information leaflet or poster in jury rooms highlighting the most common symptoms of stress and giving them basic information and coping strategies once they start to see the signs.
Two, implement a juror assistance program. Once jurors know how to recognize their symptoms, they might need psychotherapy. Similar to how an employee assistance program works, offer jurors someone to reach out to, a program that connects with professionals who have experience working with jurors or who are specialized in the nature of the trial.
Number three, in cases involving death or distressing details, help needs to come soon. It should not just be offered, but given. This may entail bringing in counsellors at key points in the case or after a certain duration—for example, 90 days—so that stress is not compounding. I would recommend this as mandatory. The immediate cost of this may be far outweighed by the long-term burden on the individual jurors.
Fourth, jury duty is unlike any other circumstance in one's life, and jurors have no network—i.e., family or friends—with whom they can share what they're experiencing. They need someone who can guide them through what to expect in emotional impact, psychological impacts, impacts on their family and social life, and when the jury duty ends, they need someone to set expectations on how to adjust back to normal life after being a juror. It's post-trial care, if you will.
As closing remarks, it's almost four years to the day that we delivered our verdict That was on December 19, 2013. At times I still feel the consequences of the inquest, especially when I hear the name Ashley. I'm told it will pass in time.
Don't get me wrong: serving on this jury, while very challenging, had its positive impacts. I learned so much about Canada's correctional, legal, and health care systems. Through speaking up for someone who could no longer speak for herself, I've learned how to speak up for myself more, and I certainly treat people with more care now.
Finally, I would like to thank the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights for allowing me the opportunity to share my experiences and for affording your time and efforts to ensure jurors have access to the necessary psychological support services they may need. I am excited to hear what comes of your study. My hopefulness level is a 10.