Have any ACists served on a jury?

[bkholdem]

I served on a jury. It was a civil suit. I was the last holdout and it was a very interesting experience. Being locked in that room with 11 people against you all wanting to leave. I think it helped build my character plus I am all for juries as I am for jury nullification and think that concept should be spread as much as possible.

[captZEEbo]

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I served on a jury. It was a civil suit. I was the last holdout and it was a very interesting experience. Being locked in that room with 11 people against you all wanting to leave. I think it helped build my character plus I am all for juries as I am for jury nullification and think that concept should be spread as much as possible.

[/ QUOTE ]Please expand! First, had you seen 12 angry men beforehand? How long did you hold out for? What reason did you hold out? Did you think you had any chance of changing the people?

[Nielsio]

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I served on a jury. It was a civil suit. I was the last holdout and it was a very interesting experience. Being locked in that room with 11 people against you all wanting to leave. I think it helped build my character plus I am all for juries as I am for jury nullification and think that concept should be spread as much as possible.

[/ QUOTE ]Please expand! First, had you seen 12 angry men beforehand? How long did you hold out for? What reason did you hold out? Did you think you had any chance of changing the people?

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I'm impressed

[Low Key]

Pull a Homer Simpson, tell the judge you're prejudiced against ALL races.

[bkholdem]

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I served on a jury. It was a civil suit. I was the last holdout and it was a very interesting experience. Being locked in that room with 11 people against you all wanting to leave. I think it helped build my character plus I am all for juries as I am for jury nullification and think that concept should be spread as much as possible.

[/ QUOTE ]Please expand! First, had you seen 12 angry men beforehand? How long did you hold out for? What reason did you hold out? Did you think you had any chance of changing the people?

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I had seen 12 angry men. I'm not sure but I think there might be an original and a remake but I did see it and I LOVED that film. I think it did a really good job characterizing the way people's selfish interests/unconscious emotions, etc influence the way they behave on a jury.

I'm a pretty perceptive guy and actually raised my hand to approch the judge/prosecutor/defending lawyer to raise an issue when I was selected. I asked a quesiton about the plaintiff (who was not present), as I suspected I had insight into her background/psyche. I was correct in my suspicion-they told me and I told them why I was asking (I"m a counselor). The judge asked me if I felt that I could be impartial given all of hte info and I said yes and both the prosecutor and defending lawyer accepted me for the jury.

The first day was kind of a cluster f*$% with people kicking around random thoughts opinions but no one was examining the evidence which I found amazing. People were just speculating and pulling hypotheticals out their buts. I mostly kept quiet but asked a few questions of people. We took a vote and it was about 50/50 by the end of the day.

The start of the next day someone makes an announcement that they had thought about it last night and think the plaintiff was full of it/deserved what she got and others agreed. It quickly became 11 to 1 (I was undecided, I had not made up my mind that she deserved any settlement but did not want to dismiss the defendants).

One juror challenged me saying "how can you be right if we all agree?" and I simply said that I had not made up my mind and had questions. The person who asked the question became visibly pissed and spouted off angrily at me. I responded calmly but in a way that embarrassed her. At that point the head juror interjected and engaged me in discussion.

I had felt considerable pressure as soon as the morning vote happened and the pressure escalated when the lady attacked me and I got sneering looks from other jurors (prior to the head juror interjecting and dialouging with me) which made it that much worse.

It was quite obvious that at least a few to maybe half or more just wanted to get out of there and be done with it and really never examined any evidence.

I pointed that out and asked people how they came to their conclusions (which they basically came to emotionally and not rationally and could not really dialouge with me when I had quesitons or poited out other possibilities.

The head juror did a great job keeping order and displayed patience with me. I pointed out my concerns and told them that I wanted to look over the medical records. People were pissed. I finally made my decision after examining hte medical records in favor of aquittal, or whatever you call it in a civil suit mid way through the second day.

I did not think I had any chance in hell of changing the minds of the other 11, and as I said I was simply undecided, the other eleven wanted to say not guilty and leave. I was not sure one way or another. If I became convinced the person deserved a settlement I think it would have been really, really difficult for me to convince them. Some had predjuices about the defendant even though she did not testify and was never present in the courtroom (pertaining to the question I asked the judge prior to final appointment, that the others started to quesiton and kind of figure out after the first day of deliberations).

But all in all it was a very valuable experience for me. If I am ever selected for a drug case (as long as the dude doesn't shoot someone) I will hold out for mistrial, argue for aquittal until I get all the others to agree or the judge declares a mistrial. There may also be other criminal situations I do that with.

[Archon_Wing]

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Make sure if you want to serve to put on a dumb loyal citizen act. Do you know what kind of conviction it's for? If it's drugs I would consider it a note of personal honor to sneak my way in there and get the guy off. Other things I'd probably be too apathetic to do it unless it concerned similarly totalitarian laws...maybe tax evasion would be fun.

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One of the reasons I don't want on is in case I get put on a trial for a violent/sex crime. No way would I vote not guilty for someone who obviously commited rape or some other crime along those lines.

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That would really be all you need to say. They may ask you if you are really positive and such, but if that is really what you believe (It's probaly a good idea to talk about your conscience) there's little they can do. A lot of times, people will back down when the judge asks them "are you absolutely sure...." a few times and they'll probaly give some reasons, etc. Don't be afraid of the judge getting pissed; just don't pull off any 2p2 style comments and it'll be fine. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Archon_Wing]

bkholdem:

That's simply a great thing that you were standing up for juror's rights. I would have never known anything about juror nullfication, had I not found it browsing online sources. If more people knew that they had that kind of power to really vote with both their heart and mind, then things might change a bit.