Quote:
Originally Posted by pavulon
deeply worried about ever having to be a defendant in a jury trial.
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Shouldn't be a worry unless you are engaging in illegal activities, right?
I hear you though. I was called to JD in VT superior court, and ended up serving on three cases.
In one case, I found it amusing (and scary) how some of my fellow jurors were so easily confused into reasonable doubt by some fancy/fast talking by a slick defense attorney.
In another case, I was really shocked at how cavalier some jurors were in rendering a guilty verdict. This case was a sexual assault charge...that's rape. The statute was abundantly clear that sexual assault involves penetration of some form. The defendant in this case was a massage therapist and the situation was that the massage "got a little freaky" where he touched the victim's coochie area. This guy was clearly a dirtbag, but was apologetic. The victim's testimony was unclear and inconsistent with respect to whether there was any penetration. The defendant was guilty of something, no doubt, but was he guilty of rape? Initially, about half of the jury, myself included, was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that this guy was guilty of sexual assault...sexual misconduct, lewd and lascivious behavior, absolutely. We deliberated for the remainder of the day after the trial, and had not reached a unanimous decision. We returned to court the next day to continue deliberations. It was the day before Thanksgiving. After a few hours, everyone except for me and one other guy had decided they were "ok" with calling him guilty...SO THEY COULD GO HOME! Yes, it sucked to be sitting there the day before Thanksgiving, but when I saw these jurors flip only because they didn't want to be inconvienced any longer I was pretty disgusted. We ended up a hung jury, so it was a mistrial I guess.