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  • Published: 3 July 2006
  • ISBN: 9781740512244
  • Imprint: Vintage Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $27.99
Categories:

Secrets Of The Jury Room




‘…a wonderful book that ought to be compulsory reading for lawyers, judges, law students and all citizens who are interested in our system of criminal justice’ - Robert Richter, QC, The Age

Lawyers and judges speak platitudes about the wisdom and commonsense and community values juries bring to bear, but it's clear from Malcolm Knox's recent experience of a long jury trial that this is a legal fiction. He found chillingly apposite an old legal adage: you'd love to be in front of a jury if you'd committed a crime, but hate to be in front of one when you hadn't.
From the extraordinary story unfolding in the courtroom, to the equally amazing account of how events unfolded in the jury room during the trial, to interviews with barristers, solicitors and other players in the criminal justice system, Malcolm investigates the tricks of the trade and sketches the vast difference between what courts think juries should be and what juries really are.
The results are guaranteed to blow the mind of anyone interested in justice and how it works in Australia.

  • Published: 3 July 2006
  • ISBN: 9781740512244
  • Imprint: Vintage Australia
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $27.99
Categories:

About the author

Malcolm Knox

Malcolm Knox was born in 1966. He grew up in Sydney and studied in Sydney and Scotland, where his one-act play, POLEMARCHUS, was performed in St Andrews and Edinburgh. He has worked for the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD since 1994 and his journalism has been published in Australia, Britain, India and the West Indies.
His first novel SUMMERLAND was published to great acclaim in the UK, US, Australia and Eurpope in 2000. In 2001 Malcolm was named one of the Sydney Morning Herald's Best Young Australian novelists. He lives in Sydney with his wife Wenona, son Callum and daughter Lilian. His most recent novel, A PRIVATE MAN, was critically acclaimed and was shortlisted for the Commomwealth Prize and the Tasmanian Premier’s Award.

Malcolm Knox is the former literary editor and award-winning cricket writer of the Sydney Morning Herald, where he broke the Norma Khouri story, for which he won one of his two Walkley Awards. His novels include A Private Man, winner of the Ned Kelly Award; The Life; and most recently The Wonder Lover. His many non-fiction titles include The Greatest: The Players, the Moments, the Matches 19932008; The Captains: The Story Behind Australia's Second Most Important Job; Boom: The Underground History of Australia, From Gold Rush to GFC, which won the 2013 Ashurst Business Literature Prize; and Bradman's War, shortlisted in the 2013 Prime Minister's Literary Awards.

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Praise for Secrets Of The Jury Room

* ‘Compulsory reading for every judge, lawyer, legal bureaucrat and attorney-general in the country. But it’s a good read too… a well-written book, scrupulously researched, with a ripping yarn of a court story’ - Roderick Campbell, The Canberra Times

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