Any juicy jury stories, Julie?
My stories do not juice.
My stories barely rim a margarita glass :)
It was supposed to be a short trial. A minor point of law. Quick to lay out, quicker to decide. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am (ma'am, ma'am, ma'am and eight sirs.)
Did he or didn't he have a knife? Whose statements did we believe? Did we tip the scales from Robbery (to which he had already pleaded guilty) to Armed Robbery (which he denied.) Few facts, a handful of witness, little evidence. Just a great big grey playing field of subjective, inconsistent and rather refutable statements.
There was a guy on our jury that had been on a murder trial about ten years ago. They heard eight days of testimony and had two days of deliberations. We? Were well on track to reverse that. As it was, we got to three days of deliberation and hit the Friday wall.
Deadlocked 7/5. (Guilty/Not)
No one was budging.
We asked to and then watched tape of key testimony again.
Deadlocked 7/5. (Guilty/Not)
(Lather rinse, repeat.)
Personally, I would have liked to think that if I was on the guilty side of the fence, the fact that 5 sane normal jury member's didn't feel convinced "beyond a reasonable doubt" would have caused me some doubt. I raised that with the group. I also mentioned that had we been sitting on 11/1 G/NG then I would have seriously had to consider if my "reasonable" was reasonable. That and the fact that no one wanted to come back Monday talked two people over from G to NG.
It was 5/7.
And then I talked about how for me, the consequences of G to NG were so much less than NG to G.
It was 4/8.
t insert a lot of pointless talking, some limp sandwiches and the exchange of profanities here
New vote?
It was 4/8.
So we did a "I am an immovable object" vote.
(Because I wasn't prepared to keep talking and talking and angsting and headaching and reasoning if, at the end of the day - or the next day or the next day - there were people that would not agree to agree.)
It was 3/2 (G/Not)
I was (oddly enough for I am a bear of great opinions and a stubborn streak the width of the Yarra) not immovable. By this time, I was however, clinging to the judge's direction about "to the best of my ability" and I figured I'd done that. I would have preferred a not guilty, but I could have lived with the guilty decision. Unfortunately not everyone thought that way.
So, 3 Immovables.
And they'd made up their mind on day one.
I feel that they didn't decide on the evidence.
They just decided.
They didn't judge the evidence, they just judged.
For me? The prosecution failed to make their case. For whatever reasons (yada yada presumption of innocence burden of proof cakes)
But by this time, poor S. was ready to hit R.
Everyone hated F. (Who started sentences with "This is probably a stupid question" until we told him, "You know, you don't have to say that anymore" grrr!)
And D. got so far up my nose, I did a HUGE soapbox rant of the "I do NOT have to convince you of my doubts, I don't even have to convince me of my doubts. I just have to have enough of them!!!" flavour. It was stellar. I think it talked another one over the fence :)
So, yeah.
Unable to reach unanimousness.
We trooped into court to talk to the Judge.
I guess he worked out we were taking it seriously and STILL not getting anywhere.
And he discharged the jury.
I felt like such a failure at that point.
Then the tipstaff told us about the accused's priors.
There was a lengthy list. Mostly drug related. It's likely he did it. Even probably probable. The "guilty"s were able to walk away feeling vindicated. And the "not guilty"s could still know that they did an okay thing, that on the evidence the case was not made.
So, I still feel like we failed the system. And really? It was probably the other way around.
And in summary, I don't think I'm any good at deciding someone else's fate.
It's such a unique situation to be in. To not be able to say "You have your opinion, and I have mine, and we need to just accept that", or to be able to walk away from those difference. How often does it happen? At work perhaps, but there they have hierarchies and mechanisms for resolution. And often, in that situation, if I'm disagreeing, I'm passionate about that. I care enough to argue the point (and the other point, and the fifty points after that.) And I know that what I lose on the swings, I can often regain on the roundabouts.
There in court, someone else's fate in my sphere of influence? I was totally unable to walk away from the conflict. And, well, they physically locked us in every morning, and they took away our mobile phones. That pretty much sums up the experience!
(On the up side of the ledger? They paid me $36 a day for the experience, I'm on the free pass list for three years, and I found the world's best heart shaped, custard filled donuts in a coffee shop next to the County Court.)
Let the editing begin...
Ten. Edited to the amount of ten.