Yesterday 11 other people and I finished our deliberation on a case we started 9/27.
The case was fairly simple. A woman was attacked by three men walking home from work in early February. Two of those men punched and kicked her repeatedly while the third stood back and watched and after she fell to the ground they took her purse and ran. An hour after the robbery occured the police found three men fitting the description of her attackers hiding in a ventilation room of a parking garage surrounded by all of the items from her bag, an eighth of an ounce of cocaine, and a working firearm with no bullets. We deliberated for probably 10 hours or so and found all three of them guilty of both counts of robbery, one of them guilty for the weapon, one of them guilty for the drugs, and all three of them guilty for resisting arrest.
Sitting on this jury was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Even though I know that we made the right decisions it is still gut wrenching to sit and watch these men and their families sob as their lives are torn away from them. One of the men had a fiancee who watched every day of the trial and it hurt to know that the future she planned and the lives they wanted have been destroyed, even though I know it was his choices and actions that destroyed it.
How many votes did you take - did anyone take convincing? Were the ten hours spent voting and re-voting, or was it more you went through everything thoroughly to make sure you all agreed on each part of the case?
Did you find any of them not guilty of anything? i.e. were all 3 charged with the gun & drug crimes, but you thought only one of them was guilty of them?
We took dozens of votes over that time. All three were charged with all the crimes (six charges, robbery with the aid of another, robbery causing physical injury, possession of narcotics, possession of a firearm, possession of stolen property, and resisting arrest) and none of them were found guilty of all 6 charges. Only one was found guilty of the drug charge, another was found guilty of the weapon charge, and a third wasn’t found guilty of either of those. Those two charges were the only ones with any variation though. They were all found guilty of the other 4 charges.
There were several people who took some convincing for various charges. The biggest issue we had was that about 4 people could not bring themselves to charge the third guy with the robbery causing physical injury because he didn’t touch her. We finally were able to explain to them that they would be correct in declaring him not guilty if the charge were assault and battery but since it was simply a robbery charge that includes the injury of another person he was still guilty even though he didn’t hit her.
I was happy to serve on a jury. I hope that some day if I ever need to go to court that 12 people can set aside their schedules for a week or two so I can make use of my due process so I am more than willing to do it for others.
Understood, but did these guys have previous records? Sometimes the capacity for self-delusion amongst criminals and their families can be truly amazing.
There was a famous case a few years back in Reading PA, where a young man chased his ex-girlfriend all over town for more than a half -hour, then, at a railroad crossing, used his pickup to ram her car in front of an approaching train, killing the ex, their 1-year-old daughter, and a female passenger. At the arraignment, the guy’s mother was telling everyone who would listen “but he’s a good boy”. Well, maybe, but in my experience good boys are generally not known for pushing carloads of people IN FRONT OF TRAINS.
On our way out of the courthouse one of the men’s mother was out there and started screaming at us, “You’re all a bunch of bitches!” as we walked away. I understood her pain and I felt horrible that she had to go through it but I would have felt worse if we let guilty men go out of compassion and they beat up someone else (or worse) because they had no fear of the law.
Afterwards we found out that 2 of the men on trial were already in prison for other crimes and were being brought in by bailiffs for our trial. I thought it was odd that we never saw them out and about but apparently that is because they were shackled in another room when they weren’t on trial.
Yep. Two of the lawyers did essentially nothing. The third was fucking brilliant. I wrote his name down and will contact him if I ever need a lawyer. He managed to create an entire persona of a meek, feeble man who was forced to go along with his friends and was then brutalized by the cops and at least 3 people on the jury took more than an hour of convincing that just because he seems dimwitted and meek that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be held accountable by the law. Once they stripped away the emotional stuff they were fine with voting him guilty but one woman actually cried over her decision to find him guilty because she felt so much compassion for him.
Their defense was that 3 other men who look a lot like them robbed this woman and scattered her belongings around in this ventilation room and that they ended up down there completely by chance to smoke some pot at 2 in the morning. This is despite their being found by 6 officers who caught them with her belongings and a positive identification by the victim.
The judge said that after the trial we are allowed to talk about whatever we want. Hell, we can write a book about it if we feel the need. We just couldn’t say anything during the trial.
Funny, that was the same defense offered in the one criminal trial I served on. It wasn’t the defendant who tried to carjack two different cars and shot three different people, it was some other guy. The unlucky defendant just happened to look the same, be wearing similar clothes, and was carrying a handgun that matched the ballistic evidence recovered from the crime scene[s]. I wondered if he and the real shooter had passed each other as he ran down the middle lane of a highway at night shortly before bouncing off the hood of an off-duty cop’s car.
Did it bother you that everyone else had water and you didn’t? When I had jury duty the judge, both sets of lawyers (& the defendent), the clerks, and even the witness had jugs of ice water & paper cups at their tables. We didn’t. It was mildly annoying.
The prosecutor did a wonderful job, even calling for witnesses and evidence that I didn’t understand the purpose behind until we were deliberating. I think she could have done a bit more on cross examining the witnesses but overall she did a great job.
Nope. Our judge encouraged us to bring bottled water with us into the courtroom. No other food or drinks, just water, but it was nice to have it there.
Did most of the people you served with have full time jobs, or were they mostly unemployed and job searching? Did your employer pay you while you were on jury duty, did you work from home at all for part of the time?
Was it hard not to be able to tell your husband what was going on?
Everyone had full time jobs except for 1 person. My employer paid for 3 days and I used 4 days of PTO to cover some of the rest of the time. I will end up taking 3 or 4 unpaid days for that time, for which the courthouse is sending me a check for $40/day.
Not telling people was so hard! I’m a talker by nature and I want to discuss everything with everyone but I knew how important this was and abstained. I spent about 4 hours last night on the phone calling people to tell them about it once it was finished.
Did the jury have to troop in and out of the jury box to have the judge explain a piece of law or provide a definition for the millionth time? Were you allowed to take notes?
I served on a jury and was amazed at how precisely worded the law was, yet how open to interpretation it turned out to be (we had to determine if the defendant assaulted a cabby with a “dangerous instrument”).
We were allowed to take notes but it was highly discouraged. We did have to troop back and forth about 6 times over 2 days to hear specific laws and eventually we did take notes on specific wording of laws or definitions.