Jurors and Serial Killers

In this chapter, Blanshard examines one of the peculiarities of deliberative practice in the Athenian democratic governmental system, namely the tendency for decision-making to occur within the supportive presence of a network of peers. No major life decision, whether it related to the marriage of children, the sale of property, or the arrangements of funerals, was taken without wide consultation among friends and family. This means that when individuals were forced into situations of decision-making without the presence of their support networks, those decisions became, at the least, unsettling and potentially traumatic. One of the few occasions where we find such isolated decision-making is the Athenian lawcourt. The process of jury-sortition, combined with randomized seating allocation within the lawcourt, meant that the Athenian juror when he sat to deliberate was uniquely alone. Analysis of forensic rhetoric reveals how orators played up this sense of isolation and confusion.