I agree, Mr. Nicholson. That's a great point.
I hesitate to generalize and I should choose my words carefully, but certainly some judges are much more sensitive and aware about how their work has affected them over the years, and obviously the more aware they are about how they've been impacted, the more sensitive they're going to be to a juror who's dealing with something like this, potentially for the first time.
I think the more we do to provide support for judges, the more they're going to do to support jurors. I see this as much more a topic...
In the early days of presenting on issues around child abuse and domestic violence, we spent very little time talking about vicarious trauma, but now I notice that in every seminar I do for judges, it's always a topic on the agenda. There's much more awareness of this topic, and the more we make judges aware, the better job they'll do with jurors.
Notwithstanding that comment, I think that after the trial is over, the jurors still need some sort of independent mental health professional, even for an hour or an hour and a half, to debrief as a group, above and beyond what a compassionate judge can do.