Have You Ever Served On A Jury? (Civics R)
LaserWolf
Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
I have been called to municipal jury duty twice, and served on 2 drunk driving cases.
Comments
Juries expect them to have a video of the crime, and to be able to rotate the view and zoom into an individual hair, then take dna from the hair in the video...
http://www.soulstrut.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/35232/
I know a guy who was on a murder trial jury where there was video of the crime.....two of the jurors said that they couldn't vote guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt because the video could have been faked.....it's amazing anyone gets convicted in 2011.
Last time I was called I was in a jury pool of 40 folks and they told us details of the crime. It was an older gentleman in his 60's who was busted with less than an ounce of pot. When the lawyers were done they asked if there were any questions and I raised my hand and asked how they could justify the cost to taxpayers and the time of the jurors on such a trivial crime...I was immediately dismissed and haven't been called back since.
I would keep my mouth shut and get on the jury and vote to acquit in most drug cases.
I've been called 3 times but I've never ended up on a jury. I suppose I'd have an easy out by telling a prosecutor I went to law school and I know what weasels they are, but it hasn't come to that.
"Beyond a shadow of a doubt" is not the standard they should have been using. Your guy should have said something to the judge.
He may have said "reasonable doubt"....but the point of the possibly faked video remains.
There are far more bogus convictions in this country than there are stupid acquittals.
In the case you're talking about I assume the jury couldn't reach a verdict and the case was retried.
Where can I find some stats on how many guilty people get acquitted of their crimes?
Yes, it resulted in a hung jury.
He also told us that the officers testimony carried no more weight than the defendants.
When we got to the jury room people started talking about "well, if the officer said it it must be true".
We had to go back to the judge to get both of those misconceptions cleared up.
In the end we found him not guilty because the only testimony saying he gave the fatal blow came from a witness who had already been caught lying 2x in this case. He had every motive to lie, as he was the main guy in the fight and it probably was him who actually did it.
There was a lot of downtime but overall it was an amazing experience. The lawyers were both tough old guys who insulted and yelled at each other and the judge didn't take any crap.
The deliberation started out evenly split but after some people realized that they weren't being asked if they think he was guilty, but if it was proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he was, they changed their minds.
I said "stupid acquittals." Many acquittals are called for by reason of insufficient evidence.
Most criminal cases in this country don't get anywhere near a jury. Some info from your own state:
http://resipsablog.com/2010/12/20/conviction/
The worst part was that as an alternate, i watched the whole 3 day trial, and then got dismissed. No deliberations, no verdict. I really needed to get back to work at the time, so i have no idea what happened to those dudes. The prosecutor definitely did a good job, and their lawyer looked out of his league. I assume it didnt end well for them, and they were all under 21. Drug cases suck.
It was a sobering experience.
While I rarely do much criminal stuff (aside from the infrequent, hi-profile, white-collar biz), it is cool to read about jurors perception of "the show"