She is inviting readers to step into the jurors’ shoes, be part of a jury in her debut novel, Dice, to discover what various jurors think about the case, what their views are and hear their arguments, see how they come to a decision as each member of the jury narrates their experience deliberating on a group sexual assault case.
Baylis, a former law lecturer, finds juries really interesting.
"I think it's a fascinating concept, isn't it, that we bring together 12 complete strangers and expect them to work together and elect a foreperson and manage to come to a consensus."
The number of high-profile cases in recent times has shown how difficult that can really be as well as asking people to put their lives on hold for such a long time.
While Baylis believes there is merit to the jury system overall, she says the sexual violence area is a particularly difficult area for jurors to deal with.
During her years teaching at Victoria University, she was interested in the court system and how the law impacted different people, in particular, women.
Then when she moved to Rotorua, she took part in a New Zealand-Australian jury research project during which she had the rare opportunity to interview judges and jurors after they had given their verdict in an effort to find out if the direction judges were giving the juries was useful or not.
"It's very unusual to be allowed to talk to real jurors. So, that was really fascinating to sort of see inside the jury room."
Of 45 trials covering a variety of different types of cases in New Zealand, 321 jurors were interviewed and Baylis helped analyse how the juries made their decisions and what had affected them.
"In the course of doing that, I started to see that some jurors were making comments about the sexual violence cases, which I knew from previous research were problematic."
From there, she sought permission from the lead researchers to do more research into the sexual violence cases for which she had done interviews.
"I had become fascinated at the way that different people in the jury room could have different experiences of the trial and different experiences of the jury room."
It was from there that she had the idea of writing a novel from the juror’s perspective and letting each of the jurors narrate a chapter of the novel so the reader could see the different experiences.
"That felt really important to me."
"Writing was probably my first love, really. I always liked writing stories and really always believed I would write a novel. I think I had a lot of faith in that even though it's actually taken me a long time."
Moving to Rotorua for her partner’s job gave her more time to concentrate on writing. So when the idea surfaced about the jury novel, she applied for the PhD programme at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria, Teheranawaka, where she was able to write Dice and analyse eight or nine of the jury cases for an academic paper on sexual violence case misconceptions.
"That made a big difference to me, having a cohort of other writers to talk to and having Damien Wilkins as my supervisor."
While her research informed her novel, it is completely fiction and is not based on any case.
"I think a few people have thought that it might be based on the Roastbusters case because it is a group of teenage boys who make up a sex game based on the role of a dice. That is my invention."
However, that case did make her wonder what would happen if there was pressure to prosecute the Roastbusters case and how that would play out.
She also looked at mock jury research from the United Kingdom and other research in New Zealand concerning how prosecutors and defence lawyers framed their arguments to inform the novel.
But what was most important to her was to make Dice a piece of storytelling, not an explainer on how things happen in the legal system. An important part of that was developing the characters.
"Which was actually great fun because I sort of had more characters and I had to choose between them really. I had some ideas of some people I really wanted to have in there."
She also wanted to reflect the novel’s setting in Rotorua so one of the characters is a forester and volunteer firefighter who travels overseas to fight fires.
"I've got a couple of friends who've done that. And I just found that so interesting that it was something I didn't even know about before I moved here.
"And then of course, you're thinking, how does someone who's used to being outside the whole day feel when they're suddenly in a courtroom or a jury room all day long? And having these discussions and arguments about what happened and whether it's proven beyond a reasonable doubt."
Another character she wanted to include was the older retired scientist from Scion, a Crown Research Institute, who is very methodic and pedantic about the way he goes through the evidence.
"And the jury come to rely on him quite a lot and that isn't necessarily a good thing. I think it's such a microcosm of society. I think in Rotorua, that's particularly interesting, because there are areas of the worst socio-economic deprivation here, and then there are areas of significant wealth as well. So I thought it was really interesting to get that little sort of microcosm."
Having done the research and written the book, Baylis believes people need to be open to some reforms of the system around sexual violence cases and she hopes her book helps shine a light on these issues.
"In society, this is an area where there's a lot of storytelling about consent so there's lots of misconceptions about the sexual violence area in society. And it's very difficult for those things not to leak into the jury room. And that's what we found in the research too, some jurors are bringing misconceptions about these issues to their decision making."
The leading model for helping juries make decisions is based on storytelling so jurors are very early on trying to fit the evidence into a narrative they expect from society.
Jurors often feel that a victim should have a certain demeanour if they are telling the truth when giving evidence she says.
"There is no stereotypical way that you're going to appear. And judges are very aware of that."
As some of the research she was involved in was around the way judges could better talk to jurors about those misconceptions, Baylis submitted to the new Sexual Violence Legislation. It came into force in 2022 making changes to trial processes and evidence rules to reduce unnecessary re-traumatisation that sexual violence complainants can experience in court.
She also discovered Scottish research which found that public education could help jurors to argue against misconceptions in the jury room where in the past they might have felt unable to do so.
"So, I'd love to think that through reading Dice, people are starting to think about those issues and why people might not act in the way that they think."
Baylis is now working on a second novel thanks to a Creative New Zealand grant and doing a little bit of work with the Institute of Judicial Studies.
She loves the process of writing most of the time.
"I mean, there's bits which are really hard and there are parts where you get a bit stuck or where something's not working and it's quite frustrating.
"But generally, I really love it and would love to be able to just keep writing. It's fascinating to make up characters and to try to tell interesting stories. For me, I'm interested in telling stories which do have a social impact or, you know, encourage people to think about issues."
One of the "most amazing" things about the reaction to Dice, she has found, is feedback that parents have had conversations about consent and intoxication with their children or people have a better understanding of something that happened to them in the past.
"Quite soon after it was published, I did get quite a lot of feedback that was emotionally draining and difficult. And I mean, I think at the same time, the idea that your book is actually having that impact and and making people think about these issues, I think is really, really important."
Dice went on to win the Ngaio Marsh Award for the best first crime novel and was short-listed for the Ned Kelly Award for best international crime fiction.
"You know that was obviously a highlight. I love teaching law, but I did always want to doing this really."
To see
Justice: A Roll of The Dice? with Claire Baylis, Te Atamira Puawai, November 2, 2.30pm, The Queenstown Writers Festival, October 31-November 3.
Where to get help
Women’s Refuge: 0800 REFUGE or 0800 733 843
Shine: 9am-11pm every day, 0508 744 633
Shakti: for African, Asian and Middle Eastern women and children. 0800 742 584
Rape Crisis: 0800 883 300
Healthline: 0800 611 116
Lifeline Aotearoa: 0800 543 354
Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
CHANCE TO WIN
We have two tickets to the Queenstown Writers Festival Claire Baylis talk and her book to give away.
Send your details including email and cellphone number to playtime@odt.co.nz by October 28.
