Viewers' votes count in 'What's Your Verdict?'

Tonight's Inside New Zealand documentary on the Mark Lundy murder trial has already been the subject of a front-page lead story in a Sunday newspaper, a fortnight before its screening.

That means many will already know the substance of What's Your Verdict? Mark Lundy (8.30pm, TV3), which asks a mock jury to reassess the evidence that convicted the Palmerston North man of the axe murders of his wife, Christine, and 7-year-old daughter, Amber, in 2000.

Whether public knowledge of this simulated jury's decision will excite more ratings interest than this one-hour documentary might otherwise have received is uncertain. And although few are likely to have given a thought to Lundy since his conviction, the horrific crime is hard to forget.

For those who did not read the story, the programme's set-up is this: 12 members of the public were selected (using an undisclosed process) by the documentary's makers to form the panel and were locked in a studio for about eight hours to consider a condensed summary of the main evidence in the trial that took seven weeks.

Each of the fundamentals of the case - motive, timing and opportunity, forensic evidence and witnesses - have been packaged into television clips which were screened to the jurors and will be shown to viewers tonight.

After seeing and discussing the case, the jury was asked by the host, Wellington criminal lawyer Greg King, to come to a verdict.

What's Your Verdict? is the sort of idea that no doubt looked good on paper. Take a controversial trial, add 12 "ordinary" New Zealanders and a summary of evidence and wait for something controversial to happen.

But as a piece of television, this is no 12 Angry Men. It owes more to the fashion of reality TV than Reginald Rose's play - a vivid, intricate and memorable character study of 12 jurors deciding the fate of young man accused of murder.

The makers says that this documentary is, in part, about what happens in a jury room. So we get to see Mr Joe and Mrs Blow pulling faces and getting tetchy as they discuss the evidence.

But does it reveal much about our jury system?

Well, one person, an unnecessarily aggressive woman, does attempt to stamp herself on proceedings. And the documentary does hint vaguely about this sort of thing happening in real jury rooms. But given that people tend to either go all quiet and shy in front of cameras or perform like attention-seeking monkeys, What's Your Verdict? offers little valuable insight into how juries really work.

As for the decision? One mock juror puts it best when he says: "I would have had to have been in court to see Lundy and the police and all the other people giving evidence to make up my mind, not the TV and the bits of evidence we have been given."

Interestingly, a Lundy support group called Factual said it had it had "serious misgivings" about the programme.

On the real value and relevance of a show like What's Your Verdict?, the jury is still out.