Have You Ever Served On a Jury?

I have pulled jury duty a few times over the years. One memorable case was a murder trial. The defendant was a male stripper/drug dealer. He was charged with shooting one of his compatriots 18 times resulting in death.

The prosecutor presented a steady stream of reliable witnesses to the event who all had collaborating accounts of the defendant cruising the streets looking for the dude who had apparently robbed his stash house. He found him in an apartment parking lot and shot him point blank. They all described how he had lovingly stroked his gun before shooting. It was a very cold hearted execution .

The jury was escorted to the deliberation room by the bailiff. Our foreman looked at everyone almost before we had a chance to sit down and asked if anyone thought this guy was innocent. Everyone said there was no doubt of guilt and they rang the bell for the bailiff. The bailiff told us we couldn’t be done so quickly and we needed to pretend to deliberate a little to at least allow the judge time to take a piss.

The defendant was found guilty and I later found that his sentence was 8 to 25. He was released after less than 5 years. I find this a little distressing considering the seriousness of the offense. This guy was released to commit mayhem again in what I considered way too little time.

BErFeRd Prudence

Have spent various days down at the courthouse, but never made it past voir dire.

Med-mal case.

every time that i've been called for jury duty (four times over 30 years) it's been for a drunk driving case. we're always handed a long list of unusual questions that we each write an essay about. one common question has always been asked: if 'you or anyone in the family has been involved with a drunk driver' and to explain. i was hit by a drunk driver and had two friends hit and killed by drunk drivers. i was always thrown out - until the last time.

one of the lawyers singled me out during voir dire and asked that if i knew someone had spent a weekday afternoon at a strip club and was known to have had several alcoholic drinks and spent time with several of the employees, would i be able to separate that from something happening off of the strip club property - even if it involved drunk driving.

interesting question. i told them that i'd hope i could, but it really might come down to the details.

couldn't believe when i was picked to serve!

then they settled.

damn it --- never got the details! that one sounded really good!

beferd -- maybe your guy got out fairly quickly because the powers that be wanted him to take out some more of his associates!

terri

Did a jury trial that involved selling of a controlled drug.

The undercover cop positioned himself in a room so that the dealer passed the drugs to a third party who happened to be in the house, he then passed it to the cop.

The trial was for the third person, the only other person to testify beside the cop was the drug dealer who pled to a lesser charge for his testimony.

All of the jurors found the defendent not guilty. We all felt it was a frame job and the dealer should have gone to jail.

The defendants lawyer was a total idiot but the prosecutor was even worse.

Charlie NH

I was called to Jury duty in Las Vegas when I was working at Red Rock. The case I was called for was an attempted murder trial and it actually involved someone who worked at Red Rock so I figured there is no way they would put me on the case. During jury questioning I told them that I worked at Red Rock, but they put me on the jury anyway. Go figure. We sat through the whole trial, went into deliberations, but a settlement was reached before we were able to reach a verdict at which point we were released.

Larry from Las Vegas, NV

I served on County court in a check forgery case. Ended with a hung jury 11 -1 to convict. I also served 18 month (1 week each month) on a Federal Grand jury. We heard lots of felons and guns, drugs, and illegal immigrant cases. There were a bunch of other stuff and some really interesting ones. We did some of the Qwest insider trading stuff (Nacchio and Weisberg). It was tough on my job and family to be tied up for one week each and every month.

Nope.

Twenty five years in the military so that excused me (hard to serve jury duty in Tampa when stationed in Germany), though some times wish they could have called me and gotten me out of what ever hell hole I was in at the moment

Since retiring got called once. Spent the day in the selection room but never called from the jury pool and let go mid afternoon.

3 times, the last one was for attempted murder in which the guy was found guilty, then shortly after the trial ended the lady died.

twice, in Dallas.
One drunk driving (found innocent) and suit against insurance company.

Got picked for the group of potential twelve in Denver, asked how well our justice system was on scale of 1-10, and I said 6. Was asked why, and I said that too many ppl get off. I wasn't picked. Yah!