So spent a week on jury duty on a felony case, talk about stress no it was not a national case. It’s concluded & public knowledge. So we can discuss it publicly , per court instructions upon conclusion we delivered a not guilty verdict. It simply amazed me on how many people said why wasn’t he guilty I heard he was Charged with xy or z and the media implied he was guilty so he must be.
Me no the state has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt,
Them but he was Charged so he must be guilty
Me no he’s innocent until proven guilty
Them no the media said he was charged so he must be guilty
Anyhow just venting. As I decompress
The hardest during deliberations was sticking to the evidence presented and leaving coulda woulda should as out of it. Without appearing sexist the female jurors had more difficulty keeping emotions out it due to the charges of felony aggravated assault & felony child abuse
Due to my line of employment I will NEVER be selected to sit on a jury. Dealing with the dregs of society day in and day out year after year makes one jaded I suppose. :jester:
I’ve become friends with a defense attorney thru mutual kids events. He has some really interesting views on things- especially cases and juries where emotion overcomes evidence and logic.
One interesting thing is the trend in CO that if a defendant loses a case, they will get a public defender to file three different ways that the case should be thrown out. One was that the defense in the first case was not done right. He said a guy that he defended that got convicted had his new public defender lawyer contact him and request all his files because he was going to file a motion about a bad defense. My buddy was surprised since it was a pretty simple case. The Public defender said that he had no idea what his ‘cause’ would be, but he was sure that after going thru the file that he would find something to use.
He said the cases where kids were hurt were the worst if the guy was actually innocent or over charged. Juries just hate the defendant and can’t see the legal issues.
Not sure they could find twelve people who are actually my “peers” in the entire county. Most people don’t even comprehend my values let alone actually share them.
I did jury duty a couple of years ago. Nothing exciting, just a property dispute case. Still, watching the jury selection process was entertaining. And the people I served with were a great bunch of folks. Not many of them were critical thinkers, but they wanted to do the right thing.
In my state, jurors in the pool serve for 30 days, and the case I was involved in lasted about 10 days. I was called for another one - wrongful termination case - but was dismissed during jury selection. I was asked about whether I had ever fired someone. IIRC, every juror with management experience was thanked and sent home.
I get sent home every time under similar circumstances. When in the Military I would not get fully in the door before being dismissed, now I get three or four questions in and get sent home.
To some degree I understand where they are coming from but this area is dominated by Military, Military Retiree’s and former Military. I would guess if I was to be judged by my peers I would prefer it to be those guys rather than some sluggo who has nothing better to do than to sit in on a jury to supplement his Government subsidies check.
I hadn’t thought of that yet but myself and others on this forum are in the same boat.
I sat on a jury in college for a felony burglary. It was ridiculously easy as the gas station had color digital video and digital audio. We took longer to eat lunch than to deliberate.
I got selected for jury duty once. They wouldn’t let me out of it, but did agree to release me after being called but not used for one case that settled. Then I was off the hook. No objections to serving, but I’m one of 4 trauma surgeons for the entire county. Couldn’t take that amount of time off.
Around here, actually being selected to sit on a jury is rare since most cases scheduled for jury trial are settled before day one. The problem is that when you get selected for jury duty, it means that you have to hang around, put your work on hold, while you wait for them to call you to come in and be interviewed for a specific case. If you aren’t selected to serve on that case, you go right back into the pool. This can go on for a month. You can’t schedule your life more than about 3 days in advance because you might have go down and cool your ass at the courthouse on any given day (or two)
So, unless you have a job that completely removes you from the possibility of jury duty, you may still have to suffer the inconvenience that goes along with doing your civic duty.
We need more intelligent, thoughtful folks on juries. If you get wrongfully accused of a crime it is your ONLY shot of not being convicted. The Judges, Prosecutors, Cops and even most defense attorneys just assume you are guilty no matter what happens.
A very large number of cases–misdemeanor and felony–are settled and closed by means of plea bargaining. In my area, attorney fees for this method are determined according to a formula: one price for misdemeanor pleas and a higher price for guilty pleas. Attorneys and inmates communicate through video conferencing only. Nobody running the system sees the possibility of innocence with the result that an innocent person with no money is screwed. It’s almost like the innocent person wanting a jury trial is viewed as a trouble maker. Many citizens are not aware that attorneys sometimes persuade the accused to plead guilty to a lesser charge even when the accused is innocent.
It’s not cops who perpetuate this system. Judges, district attorneys, and defense attorneys do.
Let me remind everybody. If you must shoot for your life, then you too may be thrown into this meat grinder. A best possible outcome could be financial ruin. So, be careful.
I disagree with this. I know a couple defense attorneys and I’ve never heard them say anything like that. Even when they know their client is guilty they ensure a fair trial is given. As a cop I’ve written many reports about accused crimes that there was no evidence or indipendent witnesses. Now I can’t remember ever actually going to court on one of those cases as our DA won’t file on those kind of reports. However if they did every cop I know for damn sure wouldn’t just assume the accused was guilty. We see false reports, especially during divorce and child custody disputes, that we can’t prove pretty often.