Jury selection is once again under way in the Ray Tensing (University of Cincinnati PD) trial after a hung jury on the first attempt.
Prospective juror: Tensing 'should get a medal'
http://www.wcpo.com/news/local...g-should-get-a-medal

It is unfortunate for the defense that this fine, upstanding citizen probably won't be allowed to serve on the jury.

Whether sincere or not (but he sounded sincere), I think he excluded himself from having a say on an issue he expressed strong feelings on.

The prosecutor asked us if we could consider giving a guy life in prison for theft. Now that I think about it, the guy must have been some kind of habitual offender. I absent mindedly asked the prosecutor how much someone would have to steal to get life in prison while others weren't getting life for killing someone? It took him about two seconds to reject me.

Two words: jury nullification.

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Originally posted by 2BobTanner:
Two words: jury nullification.

That won't happen in this case...

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Sitting right next to Juror No. 4, Juror No. 3 had the opposite view. He complained about police stopping him without valid release, saying he "always felt it was racial."

He wrote on his questionnaire that he already believed Tensing was guilty of murder.

"Bad cops outnumber good cops," he said.

Juror three is an asshole. People with attitudes can never realize when they're in the wrong.

I would actually be fine with serving on a jury, but I know it will never happen. Got a few days into the process once on a murder trial with some gang bangers, no surprise I wasn't picked. I wasn't asked any direct questions either, didn't make it that far. Do they have something against white male infantry officers/insurance adjusters?

The antics of the defense team were pretty amusing (and sad), the way they were trying to frame things to set up their self-defense theory.

I served on a jury a few weeks back. Fed criminal trial. Stupid case but the feds don't play. Feds went 2/3 and I really wanted to make it 1/3 but the evidence and the law conspired against the defendant. It was a good experience.

I got out of jury duty with honesty a couple years back.

They had me seated, then during questioning, I told them I had no respect for either the plaintiff or the defendant, respected only personal responsibility and both of them were in my opinion wrong.

Lawyers for both sides united to remove me.

I have no respect for any citizen who dodges jury duty, nor for any person so prejudiced they cannot fairly weigh the evidence and the law presented in a trial and render a honest verdict.
A fair trial is a core principle of our nation.

Want to get out of jury duty?

Show up as a white senior aged retired lawyer.

I think I would like to have the experience just once, but it is unlikely in my small community. Very few trials here, fewer yet for anything serious.

there are lots of honest reasons why you SHOULD NOT be on a jury

if you cannot fair and impartial why go?

not liking the defendant is acceptable - who ever wrote that you have to like everybody? suppose the defendant is the SOB bully that used to beat the shit out of you every day in high school? He's guilty as fuck of whatever he did, send him to the electric chair

Jury duty is a duty only if you can do it RIGHT

doing it for the sake of doing it is WRONG

I was sitting in a jury pool years ago and had a stack of gun mags to read as I had time there.
Wise ass next to me says he figures I was trying to get out of being picked.

I looked at him like he was a talking donkey and said no, that is what I read when I have the time. He pestered me no more...

quote:

Originally posted by MTJbyrd:
I have no respect for any citizen who dodges jury duty, nor for any person so prejudiced they cannot fairly weigh the evidence and the law presented in a trial and render a honest verdict.
A fair trial is a core principle of our nation.

True, but when our core principles were discussed and codified, those framers never envisioned a system so glacial that a major trial could take six months. A citizen shouldn't have to give a half year of his life to the judicial system. If you're self-employed or employed in the trades, you don't have that much unpaid time to give without experiencing real hardship.

When my wife was called up, we had multiple small children. We had to arrange for their care, and it was a huge burden on us and the little kids.

I served on a jury only once, in Northern Virginia, on a malicious wounding case, and found it very interesting and not at all like Law and Order.

The trial took 2 days. During the trial it came out that it happened during a gang fight. What I found interesting was the different perspectives/testimony of the different witnesses. Each witness was questioned and testified to only that small portion of the whole event that they had knowledge of, and the prosecution did not put all the pieces together and present a theory or summary of the whole event that unfolded over several hours. We just heard the facts presented by different witnesses and we the jury had to figure out what we thought had happened. For example:

- one witness testified as to what happened in a restaurant/bar several hours earlier involving several individuals belonging to 2 different adult soccer teams
- Police officer testified as to what he observed in the restaurant/bar and in the parking lot.
- Resident of the home where the gang fight occurred testified to what they saw happen in front of the house
- several witnesses were from opposing sides in the fight and also facing charges, but we the jury had to figure that out ourselves
- And so on.

We the jury had a number of simple questions that could have been posed to the witnesses to clear things up, but they were never asked.

The fight was between Latinos, the defendant was Latino, and a number of the witnesses only spoke Spanish, so there was a lot of translating going on. What made it confusing is that there were a couple of instances where a word had different meanings in English vs. Spanish.

For example, several witnesses very strongly answered “No, absolutely not” when asked “Do you “know” so-and-so, even though it was clear from other testimony that they were well-acquainted. It eventually came out that “Do you know so-and-so” translates to Spanish as “are you and so-and-so lovers” or something like that. That's why the witnesses said Hell no, I don't know him.

Also, one of the main participants in the fight was consistently referred to by the Spanish-speaking witnesses as Hairy, and “the hairy one.” It turned out that the hairy one was bald.

As a jury we decided that the accused did something, although it was not proved that he did what the prosecution alleged. We found him guilty on a lesser charge and recommended the max sentence for the lesser charge.