More to be said later

Jury in Darcey Freeman bridge murder trial struggling for verdict | News.com.au

I find this very surprising, but given my famously widespread influence (ha) I guess I should not talk about it yet.

Update: so he's been found guilty.

Given all the usual cautions that it is hard to judge a trial from media reports, I have to say I found it extraordinarily hard to believe that the jury could have members who would be swayed by the one psychiatrist in six who examined Freeman long after the events and found that he was acting in a "dissociative state" at the time of the offence. Here's one of the longer reports of that evidence:

Earlier, Professor Burrows told the court that when he first met 37-year-old Arthur Freeman at the Melbourne Remand Centre last year he thought "this man may have a defence".

Professor Burrows told the jury that after examining Freeman twice more, he came to the conclusion he was in a "dissociative state" caused by depression.

Arthur Freeman does not dispute he threw his daughter off the bridge, but he has pleaded not guilty to murder by reason of mental impairment.

Professor Burrows told the court "we're talking about a man who was at the severe end of the condition" and that Freeman "didn't know what was going on".

He told the court that Freeman still does not believe he threw his daughter off the bridge, but that other people have told him he did it, so "he accepts that".

As far as I know, Freeman did not give evidence himself.

As against the dissociative state, there was this evidence:

Dr Skinner told the jury Mr Freeman's phone call to his former wife Peta Barnes, in which he said she would never see her kids again, suggested he knew what was happening and showed his intentions.

"There is no evidence to suggest that Mr Freeman was incapable of forming intentions," she read. "He was able to organise packing his car, to drive to Melbourne and to make phone calls."

The method of killing was far from spontaneous, and with the telephone call to his wife to "say goodbye to the kids", how is it that the jury had any member who believed he was not capable of forming intention?

I presume someone on the jury must have been persuaded by his apparent breakdown at the court afterwards. If anything, I think the evidence of that showed he was in no dissociative state at all: he knew what had happened and was already appalled at what he had done.

The more worrying possibility is that some jury members simply could not credit that any father not in a state of mental illness could kill his child in such a fashion. In fact, this defence by incredulity, as it were, was specifically run by his Counsel:

"Doesn't his act, don't all his actions, scream at us madness? What we say to you is, his impaired mind caused him to do this."

What an amazingly glib and convenient argument this is, yet it looks as if had a chance of working.

Jury trials can be a worry.