Entered into: Best Factual Entertainment Format 2024




Produced by: ScreenDog Productions

Distributed by: Blue Ant Media

For: Channel 4



As part of a ground-breaking TV experiment, two juries have been gathered - both unaware of each other - to simultaneously watch a live re-enactment of a murder trial, and then deliberate on a verdict the way a real jury would. The case itself is real. And the performance they watch uses the original court transcripts. The question is... will they reach the same verdict?

THE JURY: MURDER TRIAL follows one re-created criminal trial per season, with permission from the victim’s family and with access to all the trial transcripts. The case is retried in a courtroom with actors playing out the real testimony.

The juries are cast to reflect the real-life voir dire process – selected from a short questionnaire with a randomly selected contrast of moral views, backgrounds, ages, genders, political views, and socio-economic standing.

Audiences experience a simplified version of the trial, broken down into four episodes: the crime, the prosecution, the defence, and the deliberation/verdict. Each episode is intercut with pre-filmed recreation of police interviews and interrogations presented during court, as well as stylistic recreation of the defendant and/or victim’s personal backstory.

In each episode, the jurors break 3 times to discuss their ongoing thoughts in “reality break room scenes” captured by fixed-rig cameras and intercut with juror confessional interviews to camera. The juror’s experience is the spine of the story and their interstitial debates help explain the strategies seemingly used by the lawyer and how effective they may be.

Juror backstories are sprinkled throughout each episode to discover who the new jurors are, where they come from, and how their views are influencing their opinions in the trial.

After the case has been presented, the juries enter their deliberation rooms to debate, converse, and grapple with reaching a verdict. And in the final emotional moments, they find out there is a second jury, and both juries are brought into the courtroom together to announce their verdicts at the same time.