Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge doing my civic duty

Can't really give any details, but doing jury duty right now. Wasn't thrilled, as most people aren't but it's actually been pretty fun so far. It's been pretty much like a restrained Jerry Springer episode listening to the "he said, she said" stuff and I have honestly enjoyed it so far. Some of it is just like the stuff you see on TV, some of it not at all. All in all, an experience that everyone should go through, and something, that despite being an interruption in our lives, should not be feared or avoided.

You nailed it in the title. It is our civic duty. I myself am exempt. Something to do with citizenship or something. I'm an alien.

I was called but they didn't seat me. I was too honest.

I got called by Clay Co FL, but only once I was stationed in SoCal.

Did my bit about 4 years ago. Found guilty, appealed and reversed.

You are right about it being interesting and worth doing. I actually enjoyed it, but they I was lucky and had paid leave for jury duty in my contract so I didn't lose any wages.

Agreed, not Perry mason , but a hoot to serve on a jury.

"Guilty! give em the death penalty". na I never been called. They wouldn't seat me anyway, so its best not to bother.

The last time I had jury duty before the defense could present their case the prosecution absolutely convinced me of the defendant's innocence.

Well, my jury duty is over. It was a domestic abuse case between a 30 year old 6’ 1” oilfield worker and his ex-girlfriend, a 5' 4" Mexican girl. He supposedly beat the heck out of her and threw her down the stairs. However, thanks to the unbelievably poor police work we had to acquit him based on reasonable evidence. He admitted slapping her, so was guilty by definition of 3rd degree assault, HOWEVER, there was a question of whether or not it was in self-defense, or whether she assualted him first. No doubt he COULD have beat her to a pulp, and may have beat her up. She supposedly drove to a convenience store after the event to call 911. The police responded, where they testified that the phone was covered in blood, as was she. No photos of the phone were taken, nor of she until after she was cleaned up. They went to her boyfriends house, where he was waiting for them drinking beer, and admitted to hitting her, but in self defense. HOWEVER, they never went into the bedroom in the basement to even see the scene where the fight occurred, to look for blood that would show her being thrown down the stairs, or being thrown onto the couch and concrete floor next to it. There was supposedly a series of phone calls between the girl who was assaulted and this guys ex in Ohio, that got pretty nasty. The defense flew her out from Ohio, but couldn’t be bothered to get cell phone records to show that the girl who was beat up had maybe called the ex (who the guy was flying out to see the next day to stay with her and visit his 2 kids) and was making trouble and possibly was doing this to provoke the guy, possibly giving him a self-defense defense and providing motive for her to have attacked him, if that was the case. The fight occurred in June so PLENTY of time to obtain something SO simple as phone records, and with cell phones, to obtain pics at both scenes. They took ONE photo of the guy that showed no bruising or discoloration to his face, BUT did have some yellowish brown shadowing on both sides of his face which COULD have been from lighting during the photos, or bruising from him defending himself! And, the girl who was beat up was absolutely NO help to herself. She is apparently on 5-9 different medications due to fibromyalgia, and a previous serious car accident which happened 11 days before the fight (rear ended a car on the interstate doing 75mph!), also causing bruising and injuries to her face. She is on oxycodone, a morphine patch, Zanax, and possibly 5-6 other mood modifying and pain killing drugs, and was drinking Goldschlager shots and beer the whole day before her ex-boyfriend was going to fly out and see his ex. He was drinking all day too, but had left the house after dealing with her, SO possibly to allow her to leave, which he’d already asked her to do. (and she’d actually already moved 90% of her stuff out prior after their breakup). So, it’s entirely conceivable after seeing her testify, seeing how unstable she was (and we caught her in several lies, although the same with the defendant, but not as much by a long way), that she basically was loaded out of her mind, that she was pissed at him, started a fight, and that he did defend himself. IF the police had done even a minimal job collecting evidence or anything to give her SOME credibility, it’s conceivable it could have gone the other way and he would have been convicted. It was THAT close. I did talk to the guy afterwards (they came in and talked to us), and made it CRYSTAL clear just how close he had come to being convicted and that we weren’t 100% convinced that maybe he shouldn’t have been, and that he’d basically only got off on the self-defense question, and do feel a little better that I won’t be reading about this guy 2 weeks from now being in another domestic abuse case. The girlfriend was THAT unstable.

However, despite the fact that it was one step away from Jerry Springer (no one got on a table and started fighting or ripping hair) with the evidence and her emotional outbursts while on the witness stand, it was actually something that I would do again. It was very interesting to see how the law REALLY works, and honestly, after seeing some of the stupid mistakes the police made, if there was ANYTHING like that in the Casey Anthony story for instance, easier to see how she got off despite public opinion. It puts a HUGELY different spin on things when you have to have a unanimous jury vote and when you have to apply a “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard to the charges. Had I voted on how the guy struck me during the trial (smirking, very cocky), I would have put him away, but when you look at the evidence and apply the legal standards, it’s a whole new ballgame!

I have a friend who was on Casey Anthony's defense team. I used to chide her about manipulating the law to get guilty people off, but over the years I've heard enough horror stories about overzealous police and/or prosecuters that I don't question her anymore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenton_Butler_case

"thanks to the unbelievably poor police work"

That takes me back to when Eric Rudolph was hiding out in western North Carolina. On television they have all these genius FBI agents looking for serial killers. I kept wondering why they sent absolute moron to WNC to find Rudolph. Those guys couldn't get out of their own way. While their daily press conferences never mentioned it (they kept falsely claiming locals were assisting Rudolph) they were getting lost and having to get rescued on a daily basis.

has she ever confided as to whether Anthony was guilty or not?

Casey Anthony.

I was called but they didn't pick me. I wore a black leather jacket,
sunglasses, battleaxe earring & carried my helmet. I also kind
of forgot to shave for 4 days. Premptory challenge...

I got out of being seated because when the defense attorney asked me what's wrong with the defendant looking nervous on the stand I said that makes him look guilty. GOOOOOOOOD BYE.

Think I got booted from the first jury i was selected for Monday morning, an arson trial. OF course, I also mentioned that I was trained in firefigthing as part of my training for Submarine Duty, so that might not have helped. The guy had a bonfire 12 feet from his house and an RV trailer, burned his house to the ground and almost took out the trailer as well. Should have been charged with reckless endangerment or just plain stupidity I'd say, not arson, but I ended up with the Jerry Springer show so don't know how he ended up faring...

You definitely want to mention any relevant experience or relationships. In a small town like Helena several people knew the attorneys or arresting officer. Also, a few people had experience with DUI. One lady's father was serving 20 to life for DUI/vehicular manslaughter. Everyone mentioned above, as well as little old me, got dismissed.