Yesterday I went through something I thought I never ever would have to - I was a witness in a murder trial. Not going to write much about the trial itself, it doesn't concern most people anyway, and the outcome isn't very uncertain - he's going to jail no matter what, seeing as he has pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The trial is held mainly to judge wether he commited what can be seen as manslaughter or 1st degree murder, how long is sentence will be and how much he will have to pay in compensations.
But I will say this: It doesn't matter wether you're the one being on trial or not, or wether you know something that can make or break a case; being in a court room is still damn bloody scary. I know the trial process in Norway is rather "casual" in comparison to British ones, our judges don't have to wear silly hats or hold trials in 200 year old halls, allthough they do have to wear a robe. When you're a tiny girl of 156 cm, and you're sitting in the dead center of a room, surrounded by judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers, the defendant and mother of a dead 21 year old boy, you feel like an ant being studied under a microscope. And I know my experience only comes to a "mild discomfort", I can't imagine being the mother, or the boy who is on trial for stabbing another boy to death. My heart goes out to both of them, in separate ways - it's not up to me to judge, that's up to the legal system, and everyone else who absolutely has to judge other people. But two lives are being destroyed here, if not even more, and you could say the dead boy might have been the lucky one, he's escaped it all.
