I’m impressed she was able to be around the men. Though I suppose she realized they were in custody and (likely) would not be on the street later that same day to harm her.
All very fascinating to me. Thanks for answering and starting the thread in the first place!
SODDI = Some Other Dude Did It?
Did the jury get specific instructions on the counts? When I have served on a jury, there were specific instructions to the jury stating, for instance, that to find the defendent guilty on this count the following elements needed to be proven, and so on for each charge.
Made me wonder if the prosecution was privvy to those instructions, because they didn’t even address some of the points in one case I was on the jury for.
We were given definitions of laws like that. For instance, to be acting in concert you have to be intentionally aiding someone and ready, willing and able to participate if need be, so that is how we found the guy who didn’t physically assault the woman guilty on the charge of robbery that causes physical injury.
On the last jury I served on (as foreman, BTW), we were given pads of paper and encouraged to take notes all during the trial. We could not take any of the notes out of the trial environment or with us after the trial was over. I guess if we wanted to write a book about the experience, it would have to be entirely from memory. It was a county court.
How do you get to be the foreman? Are you voted in by the other jurors? Is it chosen randomly? Does the judge choose? I always kind of wondered about that, but not enough to go out and research it. 
Not to steal pbbth’s thunder…
We were told that the rules, the procedures, whatever, were entirely up to us. Someone could volunteer to be foreman, or we could vote – hands or secret ballot, but even making the rules about how to enforce the rules was something we would have to tackle ourselves with no help from outside. In my case, several jurors knew me (it’s a small town), so I volunteered and they voted me in by concensus.
The deputy parked herself outside the door in case we had any requests, all of which had to be taken first to the judge in a written note (except for food). The judge answered simple legal procedure questions with a written return note, but anything more complicated required reconvening the courtroom where all members were present. We did that twice in a 2-day trial.
We were not allowed to make phone calls, but the deputy would take requests to let family members know important stuff, like would we be coming home for dinner or not and relay the messages.
It was obviously verbotten to have laptops or other communication or research devices in the jury room and we were cautioned not to google for anything relevant during the one night we went home before the trial ended.
It was up to us, the jury, what we did for lunch, but we couldn’t leave the jury room. We had several takeout menus given to us and the deputy would take any orders and pick up any food we wanted (there might have been a price cap, but we didn’t try to push it). We were offered a menu from the jail’s kitchen, and most of us thought their food was the best – really – chef’s salads, hamburgers, soups. We had a smorgasboard of bottled drinks, coffee, and snacky foods laid out for us twice a day, and if we wanted something different, they would get it for us.
Oddly enough, if anyone had wanted to set up an elaborate signalling system to the outside, since we had a big window to the parking lot, it would have been possible.
I served on a jury the other year and we found a man guilty of several counts regarding cocaine dealing. There was a young woman in court with a cute little girl who I assume were the defendant’s wife (or g/f) and daughter. As foreman I had to read our verdicts out loud and even though we had no problem finding the man guilty it was still very emotional to have to pronounce a man “Guilty” in court several times. I heard some of my fellow jurors crying.
However it’s important to remember that YOU did not take anything away from the defendants. THEY did this to themselves and their families, not to mention the mental and physical harm they did to the victim.
A small anecdote seems relevant here - a friend of mine is a manager. His dad was a manager for decades. The first time my friend was looking at having to fire someone, even though the guy absolutely needed to be let go, my friend was really worried about the whole process. He spoke to his dad who said “That guy fired himself, you are just filling out the paperwork”. Point is that someone’s actions put them into the situation where they are going to be punished, and whoever has to enforce the penalty isn’t just randomly deciding to do this to some undeserving soul, they just happen to be the person tasked with that duty.
Serving on a jury is that kind of thing - they don’t call it “civic duty” for nothing. Your job as a juror is simply to examine the factual evidence, decide whether it demonstrates that the defendant is guilty of the crime charged and to tell the judge. The judge decides on the actual punishment.
Infovore, the judge told us to choose a foreman in the jury room. A couple of my fellow jurors nominated me, I said I’d be willing to do it, we did a show of hands and that’s how I got that task. Basically that meant that I kept discussions on track (and stuff like stopping all deliberations if someone had to use the restroom, etc) and I was the point of communication between jury and court - I wrote the notes if we had questions, filled out the paperwork and read our verdicts once we were done deliberating.
What race/color/ethnicity were the attackers?
What was the race/age breakdown of the jury?
What is your estimation of your fellow juror’s inelligence and reasoning abilities?
Ours was assigned. Juror #1 = Foreman for us.
I know that, logically. It didn’t make it any less difficult emotionally. I think it made me a better juror actually. Compassion for the defendants made me fight hard to go with the innocent until proven guilty standard that we have for people here.
Two of the defendants were black and one was hispanic. The jury had 1 black person, 2 hispanic people, and everyone else was caucasian. We ranged in age from 20-62 and there were 6 men and 6 women. The jurors were all incredibly smart. I was actually surprised how awesome our jury was! Everyone was kind and polite, no one yelled or belittled anyone, no one got in a fight over our opinions. Everyone did an excellent job of working with the letter of the law and being very well reasoned.
I was on grand jury duty for literally months several years ago, we just heard evidence to indict and send to trial. The D.A. on one horrendous case gave us a long laundry list of things he was going to charge the scumbag with, and then he asked us “is there anything else you can think of that I’ve overlooked?”
One local famous miscreant has robbed, shot, or assaulted someone (allegedly!) at least three times, and each time was tracked down and found hiding in the closet or under the bed at his mommy’s house! Yeah, poor old mom showed up making a big scene at his arraignments/trials, loudly defending Sonny Boy. So he was a career criminal, so? How else was he going to pay her rent, buy her a big screen TV, and money for cartons of smokes at the rez? If I had popped out such a loser, I wouldn’t be out in public crying over him out of sheer embarrassment, but that’s just me.
They told us to pick a jury foreman, and as our group was composed of young working women, suburban housewives, and a few random unemployed guys, we unanimously picked a very nice, calm, older man for the job, lol!.. It was a remarkably interesting experience, and when someone had to miss a day, they came running in later saying, “what did I miss, what did I miss???”
The mother’s reaction makes total sense to me. She’s remembering all the times she rocked him to sleep, how many times he brought her mother’s day cards as a little boy, how many times he told her “I love you, Mom”, how he cried when she dropped him off at day care the first day and said “don’t leave me here! I want to stay with you!” I have two sons and I know they’re good boys. Regardless of what stupid mistakes they might make later.
Was the interpreter sworn in as well? To ‘…faithfully translate to the best of their ability’ or some such thing?
I ask because there was a recent case in the Bronx about a translator who was simply bad at her job and was dismissed by the judge.
Yep, she was sworn in and everything. She did a pretty good job except when the judge called a side bar once she pulled out her phone and made a call.:smack:
How much time did they get?
I don’t know. The judge will determine their sentence but we were told we can call the courthouse or use their website to look it up later if we are interested.
While we’re trading horror stories, here’s mine.
About 15 years ago I got to sit through a 2 hour video of a man having sex with his 15 year old step daughter over a period of about a year. Yes, the idiot video taped it. And Polaroids.
The prosecutor said it was the easiest case he ever tried. Just sat back and pushed play.
We didn’t deliberate long.
15 years and I still get pissed off about it.