Have you ever served on a jury?

[mkecane]

I’ve been called twice and I’ve served once.

The time I served was for a 2nd degree sexual assault of a child. It involved an 18-year guy and his 13-year old sister’s friend. The victim was spending the night at her friend’s house. If I remember correctly, the guy said he was in his bed in the basement (near the laundry room), and the girl came down and crept into his bed, so they started to have sex, but then she wanted to stop and so he did. The girl said she’d gone to the laundry room for clean towels, and the guy got her to go into his bed (I don’t remember if it was sweettalking her, or guiding her to his bed or what).

They both admitted there was sexual contact, but he said it was consensual and they stopped soon after, while she said it wasn’t consensual and they stopped soon after. There wasn’t any great violence involved (as in he didn’t hit her to drag her to his bed, or anything like that), and they stopped, so I felt bad about the whole thing. But they both admitted to contact, which is what the letter of the law says is illegal, so we found him guilty. I remember looking him up online after he was sentenced, and I think it was a 2-year term in state prison. That sucked.

[spankthecrumpet]

@Shinna_Minna_Ma

I was called for jury duty maybe 8 times, and actually served twice. In the first case, I was an alternate on a murder trial. The two guys got into a fight over $10, one guy ran into his house, came back with a gun, shot the other guy in the eye and killed him. I thought it was interesting, especially since the court had a translator for several of the witnesses because they were speaking ghetto English. I learned what a hoopty was.

The second trial was a civil suit, and I was foreman. (I wasn’t elected, but by virtue of being picked first and seated in chair 1.) It had something to do with a woman who answered a newspaper ad placed by a shady insurance company. The woman won the trial, but we didn’t give her as much as she wanted. This trial was great because the judge had retired, but was brought back by the city on a part-time basis to help clear the docket. He had lunch engagements every day, so we often had a 2 or 3 hour lunch break. We were walking distance from the [Baltimore] Inner Harbor, and there was a great used book store near the courthouse; it was almost like being on vacation. I stretched the deliberations out as long as I could.

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