Jury Duty

I served a few years back, was even the foreman on the jury. It was an interesting case about a high school teacher (male) who was accused of inappropriate touching of female students. Sounds heinous, until you discover what the touching was. In most every case, it was the teacher adjusting the clothing (ie, pulling pants up or pulling a top down) so that the students were not "showing" their "stuff" to the whole class.

We found that while he was extremely stupid for doing that, and it was uninvited, it was not sexual in the terms of "inappropriate", and that he was just trying to maintain the dress code, as was part of his duties as a faculty member. We found him not guilty on all counts.

On a personal note , most of us felt that this was something he should not have been doing in the first place, and certainly wouldn't want him touching our sons or daughters like that. Sadly, his name was mud, I'm sure he had to move out of the area even though found not guilty.

The other case after that was a civil case, where a guy rear-ended another driver. The injured driver was your classic amublance chaser candidate, and the poor defendant was in the wrong place at the wrong time. If we could have charged the plaintiff with something, we would have.

Glenn
 
Since the late 80's I get called for jury selection every three years in the state district court and every 5 years in federal court. My wife never gets called. I complained and asked to see their process for selecting jurors but they tell I should play the lottery. No luck there either.
I have seen some pretty dull cases and one case of criminal trespass that was like a Jerry Springer show. the judge sent us back to the jury room several times because of heated name calling. She finally threatened to put both sides and their lawyers in jail if it continued. I didn't get picked in many cases that I thought would be interesting like gun running or use of explosives.
When I first served I was amazed at how unprepared both sides can be. It is not like Perry Mason or anything else depicted by Hollywood. The federal drug trials can get pretty boring as you eventually hear the same closing arguments over and over.
Sat in one hung jury. We kept telling the federal judge we could not make a decision and he kept telling us to continue. Hours of arguing with one man who did not want to be responsible for what would happen to the defendant. He felt the defendant was guilty but he did not want to be responsible for the sentence.
All in all it is a duty and in a small populated state like New Mexico it is hard to avoid jury duty. They use a combination of voter registrations and driver license registration to pick prospective jurors.
 
Due to my time in the military I was never able to serve when I was called. When I got out I was called but never served due to my affiliation to law enforcement. My dad was a cop. I have never, to this day, served as a juror. Like CODE3 my firefighter exemption kept me from being called.
 
My wife is a paramedic and still got stuck with jury duty. Fortunately she was paid for the entire time minus the $28 per day the court paid.
 
I am currently serving on a grand jury. It's an eye opening experience and gives you much more respect for what our law enforcement is going through. I was shocked at the number of drug related cases. If drugs were not a problem our legal system would be dramatically less burdened. I will go for service one day every two weeks for a year.
 
I spent two months, one day every two weeks. It was rediculous. For 20 years I was able to get out of it because i was self employed, but they've tightened up the rules.

I hated it. Almost everyone else was so into it. I always hated sitting in classrooms:jerkit: .

They always lock the jury room when a case is being dicussed. One night the DA and other court people left us locked in the jury room. We finally got the attention of a janitor by banging on the door. What a joke.

I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
 
Hi Danelle.....I've sat through about 50 or more jury trials in the last 29 yrs. I don't know how it works in the States but up here in Canada only serious criminal charges, (indictable offences) go before a jury and it is the accused's choice whether they want a jury or to be tried by a Superior Court Judge alone. I has been my experience that 80-90% of Jury trials result in not guilty verdicts. I put this down to the manner the Judges instruct the jury with respect to the law they must follow in coming to a verdict, subtle yet denied way they suggest the "proper" verdict the jury should come to and the way they confuse the hell out of them by our assinine way of describing reasonable doubt.
On numerous occassions very keen and intelligent juries have by their body language and expressions indicated that that they have understood all the evidence presented and are eager to deliberate only to have the wind taken out of their sails as the judge drones on about reasonable doubt to the point they want to scream.
Once juries have gone to deliberation the single most frequent question they return to ask the court to clarify is, what is reasonable doubt?. You can just see their eyes glaze over as the judge goes through the required legal definition and you know damn well they will be back with a not guilty finding within 1/2 hour because they are so confused they are afraid to convict even when their gut tells them to.
Up here juries are not permitted to reveal anything that goes on in the jury room or they may be imprisoned. No tell all books by a Canadian jury!
I have however, due to my position, been in close proximity to numerous juries and have seen them when they leave and you can tell they are not at all comfortable with the descision they have made.

I was once told by one of Canada's most respected criminal defence lawyers "Never confuse Justice with the Law. Justice is when a guilty person gets what is comming to them. The Law is what guilty persons use to get away with their crimes!"

J.Z.
 
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