The Jury: Death on the Staircase, SBS review: a gripping true crime show

A gripping true crime story that also provides important insight into a vital part of our justice system? It’s the kind of winning combination you’d expect someone to have stumbled across years ago.

To be fair, you can’t say SBS has been slow off the mark. The Jury: Murder Trial, in which regular folk were put on a fake jury then taken through all the evidence and rigmarole of a real trial (with cameras filming their debates and deliberations), aired in the UK at the start of the year and was an instant hit. Now with The Jury: Death on the Staircase, it’s Australia’s turn.

The case the 12 jurors are faced with is real. A few years ago in Sydney, a male couple had an argument that left the older man (‘Carlo’) dead at the bottom of their staircase. His partner ‘Shaun’, who came from China, was charged over his death.

The Jury: five episodes

Over the five episodes (only the first was available for review), actors recite the actual court transcripts to recreate the trial as it happened for the all-new jury. Only this time, thanks to cameras in the jury room and the jurors explaining themselves in to-camera interviews (it’s not quite Big Brother: Justice System), we’re taken inside their thought processes as they deliberate on a case that will determine a man’s future.

Watch The Jury: Death on the Staircase trailer

The point here is to re-enact the criminal trial for the jurors word for word (with only the names, dates and locations changed), which means any further details fall under the heading of spoilers. The focus of the series is how the jury reacts to the evidence and how they reach their verdict, but there’s definitely an element of ‘what would you do’ in the presentation – feel free to play along at home and see if you come to the same conclusion as the TV jurors (or the real-life ones).

The ins and outs of the actual case provide the true crime angle. As for the insight into how our justice system works, that comes from the look inside the courtroom to see how twelve average Australians go about delivering justice.

And that’s ‘average’ taken across the board: SBS has put together a collection of distinct individuals here, including a funeral attendant, a fifty-something sex therapist, a former prison officer, a middle-aged childrens’ entertainer, a musician in his early 20s, and at least two people from the financial industry.

The Jury: mixed types

As you’d expect, there’s a mix of forceful and thoughtful types here. Selecting a foreperson is an early source of drama; Guy, an advertising creative director, gets the gig and it’s clear he’s going to have his hands full herding these cats.

Personal experience and personalities play a big – maybe too big – part in determining their approach to evidence that’s already wide open to interpretation. Time spent in an abusive relationship, time spent with criminals, time spent dealing with racism; it all factors into how they see the case.

The basic structure of this series ensures not everything is going to run smoothly. The courtroom side of things can get a little bogged down in legalese – it is a real trial after all, not the thrilling edited highlights at the end of an episode of Law & Order: SVU. And there’s a lot of conflict going on in the jury room, which tends to make at least some of the jurors less than endearing at times.

Fortunately, with so much going on things are always moving forward. While the reality of a trial might be rough around the edges, it’s also gripping drama. Seeing a jury at work is just as interesting, even when they threaten to fly off on tangents. If you’re even remotely interested in true crime or how people relate to each other under pressure, this is a winner.

The Jury: Death on the Staircase opens with the line ‘When a person is accused of a crime, it’s often the job of a jury to decide their fate. But do juries always get it right?’

We’ve got five weeks to find out.

The Jury: Death on the Staircase premieres on SBS and SBS On Demand at 8.30pm on 6 November, with weekly episodes.

See more SBS On Demand November highlights on ScreenHub …