Yee Haw - Jury Duty

[preyn2]

The last time I was called for jury duty, I (coat and tie) was released from duty while the sandwich artist with a bunch of steel in his face was retained. I don't get it.

phil

 

[kyletxria1911a1]

^^^ cause you arent one of the in crowd and can think for yourself

 

[robertc1024]

I got selected. I'm not going to look at this thread until the case is over. Sexual assault of a minor under six years old. Nice.

 

[digitaltrip]

Wow. Six? Too many sickos in this world.

 

[Mic]

Awe. Come on. Give us a play by play as the trial goes and.we'll help you decide.

Just kidding. Good luck. Might be hard to sit this one.

 

[Leper]

I was trying to beat around the bush, but because it has been directly mentioned I will add to it. Don't talk about nullification during the selection process, but be sure you know the ins and outs of it. Like I said before, you are the judge of the law and the defendants. We are the last line of defense. So I guess you could say a jury is like the A Team.

 

[Driller]

I am too opinionated and always get asked to leave. When that judge asks if anyone has already made up their minds I always raise my hand.

Sent from my SCH-i705 using Tapatalk 2

 

[robertc1024]

I just walked in the door and the trial is over. It was a very difficult trial to stomach. Here we go. So once all of the potential jurors got there, they showed us what the case was. Lots of the potential jurors had issues that excluded them. I think we were all appalled. I got picked in the final 14.

Basically, there were four separate acts that the Grandfather was accused of doing to his five year old daughter. Their whole family situation was really messed up. When the little girl was born, CPS took her away from the mother because the baby had pot in her system. So the little girl was placed with the grandparents. After a couple of years, her mom and dad lived with the Grandparents. They also had another kid living there that was the Grandmother's kid.

Anyway, one day, the grandmother asked the little girl if she had any secrets. She basically said that her grandfather and she had a secret about how he touches her. She then described it in explicit detail and the Grandmother tells the kid's parents. The parents go to the police and they take the kid to the hospital for basically doing a rape kit. After that, they take the girl to a child advocacy place that interviewed her.

So the grandfather goes to the sheriff's office and we watched the video tape of the interview. He never once acts angry. I'd be all "WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" All he says when they ask him about it is "I don't know."

Then they interviewed the Grandmother who told them what the girl told her and we watched the video of that. She was a whack job, but that's another story.

We then saw five different expert witnesses and each and every one of them said he did it.

Then they put the little girl on the stand. Horrible is the only way to describe it. A six year old girl has to go into a courtroom, full of people she doesn't know, and have to look at her grandfather, whom she loved, and tell us what he did to her. Of course the defense attorney cross-examined her, which was excruciating.

Finally, we saw the child advocacy interview from a year ago. It was the same exact story she told in the courtroom with more graphic detail. I seriously doubted that a six year old would remember the story the same way a year later if it weren't true.

Next, the defense attorney gets up and calls the girl back to the stand, and makes her do it again. He even asked her questions like "Did your grandfather touch you in the house when you were sitting on his lap?" Her response was "No, only outside."

Finally the Grandfather gets up and is back in "I don't know" mode. They had no experts, no witnesses or anything else to defend him.

After closing arguments, we went to the deliberation room. Within 10 minutes, 10 of the 12 remaining jurors all thought he was guilty. One couldn't form a definition of "Reasonable Doubt." One was just overwhelmed with the situation and the possibility of convicting an innocent man. After a few hours we made it unanimous.

I hope to God we got it right. The state of Texas has "Super" sexual crimes - like with a kid less than six. He was convicted of four of those, each with a minimum of 25 years. I hear sexual predators of children have a really good time in prisons.

At the end of this week, I certainly learned a lot of information, and have even more respect our civic duty to serve on juries, as difficult as it can be. Just don't be a weenie and weasel out of it somehow.

 

[txinvestigator]

Kudos to you for serving. Although you felt agony in having to make such a decision, I feel better knowing people like you DO agonize over the verdict.

Thank you

 

[Shotgun Jeremy]

Damn, I feel bad for that girl! Hopefully now she can move on and try not to think about it anymore.

For some reason, I've never been called to jury duty. I think it'd be interesting to do sometime.

Sent from my toolbox

 

[robertc1024]

I should also say that the Judge, Bill Henry for the 428th district court is somebody I've known for 20+ years. I'd never been in a courtroom with him before. But I have high regards of him personally. Every juror thought he did an superb job. I think he's got 14 lifetime constituents for every juror selected.

 

[matefrio]

Thank you for your service. A trial like that will stick around with you for a long time.

 

[scap99]

There's a special place in hell for that man.

 

[Glockster69]

I read the OP when you started the thread but haven't looked at it again until tonight.

As someone else said, judges / attorneys like to pat each other on the backs, it all makes good business sense, and never forget it's a business to them! Also I had a nasty divorce and found child advocacy (even when they claim to be for the father) / attorneys ad litem are heavily biased toward the mother despite any / all evidence presented. That said .....

Finally, we saw the child advocacy interview from a year ago. It was the same exact story she told in the courtroom with more graphic detail. I seriously doubted that a six year old would remember the story the same way a year later if it weren't true.

When a child of 5 & 6yrs is this consistent over the course of a year, it's difficult not to believe them.

Well done Robert. I hope the involved child can recover and live a productive life despite this horrendous ordeal.

 

[robertc1024]

Thank you guys. I really appreciate it. One of the worst things were that there was a young woman on the jury who was bawling her eyes out because she couldn't stand the guilt she and we were bestowing on the defendant. One guy stood up and basically said that you had too, the system might not be perfect, but you must do what you are required to do. I went into the thing thinking the absolutely worst thing in the world was being falsely accused and being put in jail. That would be my worst nightmare. Ultimately though, besides the evidence against him, how much worse would it be to let him loose to do it again? Crap. This will be my new nightmare for a while.

Glockster - I hear you on that. The people involved were definitely prejudiced towards the girl. Believe me, we all thought long and hard about it. The Sheriff came off as being kind of a rude ass. I still thought he was right though.

 

[steve-o]

I hope the girl can get the help she needs to heal from this and live a "somewhat" normal life.

@ Robert, I hope this doesn't sound corny, but if you find yourself struggling with what you experienced with this trial, doubt of the conviction, or reliving the horrible details of what that little girl had to go through, make sure you talk with someone.

 

[robertc1024]

Not corny. I was expecting a .gif or something from you though.

 

[steve-o]

 

[robertc1024]

They're ya go. I'm feeling the loving.