# The Court may finally force my neighbor to eat his own shit. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 28, 2003, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-court-may-finally-force-my-neighbor-to-eat-his-own-shit/158191 "2003-02-28T18:22:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![Ferrous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Ferrous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferrous)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-court-may-finally-force-my-neighbor-to-eat-his-own-shit/158191/261 "2003-03-08T06:32:55Z")
Hey, **lieu** , if you come back to read this…Make of this what you will (and I don’t know quite what to make of it myself), but this thread is now in the top 20 BBQ Pit threads for total views. Ever. (I’ve been playing with the “sort by” function lately. Scylla’s Blimp thread is far and away the most viewed Pit thread ever. This one is currently at #18, and will probably rise.) ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-court-may-finally-force-my-neighbor-to-eat-his-own-shit/158191/262 "2003-03-08T08:08:15Z")
I clicked it because it was by **lieu** and was about shit; I figured it had to be a good read. ---
**Author:** ![Hamlet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hamlet/32/2818_2.png) [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-court-may-finally-force-my-neighbor-to-eat-his-own-shit/158191/263 "2003-03-08T12:44:40Z")
I too was confused by the fact it was a criminal trial with only 6 jurors. I know in Texas, you have to have 12 for any felony jury trial, and, I thought under a case which name escapes me at this time (Ames?) that that was true for misdemeanors also. I’m also surprised that the Prosecutors would go ahead and try a case if 4 of them had already recused themselves. Just made me wonder. Of course I’m not familar with Texas law so I can’t speak authoritatively at all. ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-court-may-finally-force-my-neighbor-to-eat-his-own-shit/158191/264 "2003-03-08T12:52:02Z")
RickJay, yes you can have a jury with six people on it. A jury of 12 what most of us think but it’s really an arbitrary number. The constitution says that you have the right to be tried by a jury of your peers, but it doesn’t prescribe how many. It would be very costly and overkill to have to seat 12 jurists for every trial. So different states have adopted different numbers depending on the level of the crime. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-court-may-finally-force-my-neighbor-to-eat-his-own-shit/158191/265 "2003-03-08T14:40:20Z")
One hopes that **lieu** does not become embroiled in any other dispute that results in the ‘corrective’ punch to the nose. Now that this has been in court it would alomost certainly be used by any other potential prosecution to shed a light on his charactor. Basically you have one strike against you, you may not think so, but that is the way it is. If you take an anger management course and still end up in a puch up, it will show that you recognised you had a problem and still hadn’t dealt with it, and yet such a course would provide you with some tools with which to deal with confrontation. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_The\_Diver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Buck\_The\_Diver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_The_Diver)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2003, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-court-may-finally-force-my-neighbor-to-eat-his-own-shit/158191/266 "2003-03-08T15:22:48Z")
For those wondering about what we in Texas call “petit juries”: _When trial by jury is appropriate, it may be demanded in a civil case by either party or it may be waived by both parties. In criminal cases a jury trial is automatically accorded to the accused. A jury of twelve is impaneled in the district courts, while a jury of six is used ordinarily in county and other inferior courts._ From [The Handbook of Texas Online](http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/JJ/jzj2.html). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-court-may-finally-force-my-neighbor-to-eat-his-own-shit/158191.md?page=13)