It's in Dallas County, I'll fill in the juicy details when the trial is over and I'm discharged by the judge.  The prosecutor is not hot.  Neither of the defense attorneys are hot.  Sadly enough there are no hot jurors.  The food sucks and there are TSA wannabes at all the entrances.  Apologies, courthouse security runs rather smooth and none of them are on a power trip....politeness is a 2-way street...and with some of the characters coming into the building, I don't see how the security guards keep their own heads from blowing up.

You wouldn't believe the excuses people make to get out of jury duty...now I see why Lawdog gets pissed off.  I had a couple of cards I could have played to be eliminated...I think everyone does.  The law says that I have to show up for jury selection when I received a notice, I'm responsible for getting myself to the courthouse on time (f*kers showing up at 9:30 and 10 when the notice says 8:30 slow the whole process down).  I believe that I have the duty to make sure the state meets its burden in proving the defendant guilty.  As for the decision on punishment if the defendant is proven guilty...you only find out what you can do when you're put to the test.

Figure it this way, do you want someone on your jury that wants the system to work, that believes in responsibility and duty, that will push themselves to make sure the correct decisions have been made....or the person that shows up so they can get that extra $35 a day to supplement their income?

I'll fill in some more details on the jury selection/elimination.  I cannot and will not discuss any details of the trial itself.

Testimony begins in 2 hours.


mm

Have fun.....Your about to find out exactly how dumb some of your peers are.

i almost made it onto a jury not too long ago

i got disqualified when i was asked if i would consider probation as a punishment if the accused were found guilty

the case was for sexual abuse of a child

I was on a jury a couple years ago in Dallas County. I was like juror number 2 in my smaller pool and knew my ass was cooked in voir dire. If they don't have a reason to exclude you...you're on.

Things at the courthouse got much better after the first day. Once the rest of the jury pool was gone, the courthouse employees were much nicer. By the 3rd day they were very very nice. I think they deal with so much thuggery that they just try and block it out. Our trial was on one of the upper floors in a District Court. If you get bored during a break, walk down the stairs to one of the other floors and gaze upon the cesspool of humanity occupying the benches in front of the courtroom. I would often go down to the lower floors during breaks to talk with people at work on my phone...I could overhear just brutal crapola these thugs were charged with. Mostly drugs but lots of petty car burglaries, assaults etc. They all brought every member of their loudmouth family along too. 3-4 generations of garbage. The whole tribe.

Our trial was first degree sexual assault of a child, a serial child rapist who raped a bunch of kids on a farm in Sunnyvale. With a previous conviction in the early 80s for burglarizing a home in Oregon in the middle of the night and raping a teenage girl. He was originally Cuban, he came to the US after Castro opened up all his prisons and sent the pedos, murderers and crooks to Florida. At the time of his trial  he was pretending to be an illegal alien Mexican national, a fingerprint expert came in and testified that the dude in the courtroom was really a Cuban rapist. It was an interesting 4 day trial. It took us 45 minutes to come back with a verdict because there was only one bathroom in the jury area and we all wanted to take a leak first. Otherwise we would have come back with a verdict in 5 minutes. We gave him life after the second phase of the trial. The jury charge involved a packet of paperwork we had to read through and check boxes off..so it took us about 30 minutes to write his life off. We elected a very shy 18 year old african american girl to be the jury foreman. We wanted her to stand facing this punk when the verdict and sentence was read. You should have seen the look on his face!

Is the defendent a female and is she at least hot?  

If you want to get out of it, and most do, on the screening process questionaire if asked if you're opposed to Capital Punishment answer no, that thats why you're there.  Also write 'Obama sucks' at the bottom.

That might get you on the wrong side of the court room.

This.  Last time I was called I sat in on an armed robbery case.  The victims knew their assailant from the neighborhood and he was found with the stolen goods in a traffic stop a few days later and he had also used a cell phone stolen in the robbery to call family and friends minutes after.  The defense called no witnesses.  We still had some stupid c*nt on the jury who would not vote guilty.  Seriously.

Your jury will find her/him guilty.

This might be blasphemy, but I've always thought it would be a good idea to have professional jurors––people who were trained in logic, rhetoric, and the law who could judge the validity/cogency of arguments and make informed decisions rather than falling for a high-dollar attorney's emotional appeals.  Someone who is in between a judge and a paralegal, if you will.  They could rotate out and not serve on the same types of trials.  If they were paid well enough, this would be good motivation to show up and pay attention.  

I know the rules are "jury of your peers", but do you really want just anyone deciding our fate?

Simply being (theoretically) the same species does not make one my "peer"...

Yea, that way they couldn't be bought!

Surely if someone does not vote guilty then they must raise a reasonable doubt?

EVERYONE should do this once.  It's very interesting.

My only jury duty was a sexual assault on a mentally challenged guy (mental age of a 6 to 7 year old).  The guy beat him, forced him to preform oral sex, cut him with a knife, and tried to shove a broom up his ass.  Their was this dumb bitch on the jury that wanted to give they guy probation (he was in jail for about 1/2 year awaiting trial and she thought that was enough)....  He basically raped a child...in the victim's own house.....fuck that guy.

In Travis Co. if it was his first offense he would be put on probation.  "He just made a bad choice."

When I was on a jury in Dallas, all the district court jury trials were all awful gut wrenching crimes. The defendants were all facing life or worse, they were career offenders who were basically at the end of their rope in the justice system. The court across from ours had a double kidnapping sodomization rape fest trial of two men who drove around Dallas one night grabbing women off the street and raping them, in North Dallas.

For trials like the ones on that floor, the juries were loaded up with professionals including, oddly attorneys. Nurses and a sprinkling of blue collar folks. I thought attorneys would usually be excluded but for cases with so much at stake both the defense and prosecution seemed to want level headed people. One guy in my jury was something of a career juror. He was a retired airline pilot, former mayor of Red Oak(I think) and had served multiple terms on a Dallas Grand Jury. He said the Dallas Grand Jury was heavily weighted with airline pilots and postal workers. They met a couple times a week on the first floor of the courthouse. He said doing that really takes the life out of you realizing how many bad people are out there.

Both the state and defense have rested their cases.  Deliberation tomorrow.


Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck

I haven't made a decision and I can't consult with the smartest people I know.....I can't even research anything relating to anything that was presented by either side.


mm

but we can. What case number are you a juror on?

You have noticed that the system has been corrupted to produce the most unqualified, emotionally manipulatable juries possible, haven't you? Sure some rational, educated jurors slip through from time to time, but they are the exception.

Or as one comedian commented, "It's reassuring to know only the people not smart enough to be able to figure out how to get out of jury duty are the ones deciding someone's fate."

It's never a good sign for the defense during closing arguments when jury members are texting and playing games on their iPhones.

If you want to be chosen, sit in the back quietly and don't raise your hand to answer any questions. Seems like the ones asking questions don't get selected.

After re reading I realized you were already selected.

Was named jury foreman the last two times I served. fun times.

I hate jury duty.

$35 supplemental income? I don't work, I don't get paid.
I spent the morning in the selection process at George Allen yesterday. We made it to th hallway outside the courtroom and were dismissed.
I'll do my duty if called upon to do so. Though I may kid around about a "Tourettes strategy" to get out of it.

I served on a murder trial several years ago and found it very interesting.

State of Texas v. Patricia Marie Andrews

Patricia Marie Andrews is was accused of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. On evening of December 13, 2008 Ms. Andrews (45 y/o (at that time) was accused of attacking Shakema Haskins with a shiny metallic object that caused grievous injuries to Ms. Haskins' face.


Our verdict was Not Guilty of Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon.

Ownage of page 2 of my own topic.


mm

So what was the logic?



Didn't happen?



She did not do it, someone else did?



Seelf-Defense?



He deserved it?



 

I imagine she did "it" but the action did not meet the necessary elements of the charge. The shiny object was probably not enough to be a "deadly weapon"





Just a guess.
 

Peoples.....think....think a lot before you make or write a statement, maybe even consult counsel if there is even the slightest chance you may be a suspect.

Cops, especially detectives, make sure you document in no uncertain terms that the suspect you are question truly understands their rights.  It was not a factor in this case, but it was unclear whether the defendant completely understood what she was signing and initialing in regards to her rights.


mm

The victim must have healed up pretty quick since she picked up a class b misdemeanor theft charge shortly thereafter MB0962615. Looks like she got off probation just a couple months ago!

I was not aware of that.  The court was clear that we were not to research the defendant, complainant, or counsel for either side until we were discharged by the judge.


mm

Yep. Good for you. You are supposed to go into the trial with a blank mind and base your verdict only on the facts presented in the case. After the trial, that's when the prosecution might come back to the jury room and fill you in on all the dirty laundry they could not present in the trial.

Glad y'all looked carefully at the case and made the government try and prove their case. The US is one of the few countries on earth where you really are innocent until proven guilty.

I served on a domestic violence jury several years ago that was declared a mistrial because the prosecutor kept trying to bring up the past of the accused.  His priors had nothing to do with the so called assault ( actually self defense in his case) but would have been this third strike if convicted.



ETA:  quote should have been for the above post, not the one I quoted.
 

Where would I look to find details of the case, charges, etc... and info on the persons involved?  I'm curious now that I've been discharged.


mm

If you know their name you can start here:

http://www.dallascounty.org/criminalBackgroundSearch/

In your case, both names you gave were misspelled slightly or had a different middle name that the one you provided. That's common in Dallas County where the bookkeeping is sloppy. The defendant in this case is listed with the middle name "island".

There should be a way to also look up their arrest, usually, on the Dallas Police Department website if you know the case number and the date of arrest.
http://policereports.dallaspolice.net/publicsearch/searcharrestpublic.aspx

Complainant's last name is correct....looks like it was misspelled on the incident report.

Island was the defendant's married or maiden name...correct middle name is Marie.


mm

All the better for the defendant, actually. If a future employer does a background check her name will be harder to find. I think purging your name from the system takes time and money, most people in situations like that have neither. Dallas is one county that data mines and sells public records so her arrest record and trial information will be floating around out there for years, even if her case is expunged at the courthouse.

You can bet there was also a weave or two torn off.

Same here, was actually the first time I recieved jury duty.  Would have made it onto the jury until they asked that question.  Some of the female selections had been sexually abused as adolescents, was shocked when it turned out to be 3 or 4 of them.

I do not think i could consider probation if it concerned sexual abuse of a child.  There is no rehabilitation for goblins like that.


mm

I wound up on a jury for a murder trial because I answered all the questions honestly.  even had a brother in law as a homocide detective at the time and I still got selected.
20 year old kid murdered his 6 month old baby

not to sound like a pussy, but as a father with a similar aged child at home, worst fucking 8 days of my life for a variety of reasons.
didnt sleep right for months.  nightmares, couldnt get the autopsy photos out of my head, all kinds of shit.
then dealing with the limp wristed and/or dumbass "peers" on the jury.  wow
as has been stated, its a real lesson in just how dumb and forgiving people are.

I wound up the foreman of the jury since nobody with a spine wanted the job.  wasnt going to let some pussy let this kid off with a slap on the wrist like some wanted.

55 years motherfucker.  I wanted more.  but the "oh, he's served 18 months and is rehabilitated" people pulled the average down.

no, I'm not bitter.
(could still tell you the baby's name though)

makes you want to make shit up during voir dire

sorry
/rant off

I have been called to jury duty 8 or 9 times.
Only made it to the jury box once.
But that one time was worth it.
Within two minutes of the judge sitting down at the bench, the defendant got into some kind of argument with his pro-bono attorney and punched him in the side of the head, knocking him to the floor.
I remember the judge saying to the prosecutor "well, I guess this jury is poisoned", then he told us to go home.
The bailiff would not let us go right away, however, because they had found out that the defendant's family had been "leaning" on one of the female jury members in the bathroom.
I never did find out how that came out.

Received the check today.  $74, $6 the first day and $34 each day after.  Down from $40.


mm

Last time I was on a jury, I gave them every opportunity to dismiss me during voir dire. Usually they don't want educated people on juries - so when they asked if anyone knew what nystagmus was, I raised my hand - the prosecution then asked me to explain it (which I did). Surprised me when they chose me for the jury. Since the wonderful screeners had confiscated my lighter that a.m. (I can be trusted with a gun on the street, but a torch lighter in the courthouse is apparently too risky ), I had already decided in my mind that unless the guy was patently guilty of a real crime, he was getting off. I got voted to be the jury foreman Luckily, everyone decided"not guilty", so I didn't have to keep everyone there until they agreed with me

I got called for jury duty a few years ago in Denton county.  During voir dire, one of the potential jurors told the attorneys he was, something like, the president of the local chapter of MADD.  This was for a DWI case!

I got selected and it was a 6 person jury.  The trial only lasted one day, and the defendant was quite obviously guilty.  One thing strange was, the DA told us that if we found him guilty, the defense and prosecution had already reached an agreement on the sentence, so we didn't have to sentence him.  Which, for the defendant guilty, was probably a good deal, because we all decided that we would throw the book at him.

I've been in jury selection pools several times...  once for federal district court (on call for a month, actually had to spend most of a day 3 times down at the court house, once the case was cancelled and I didn't have to go).  Other 3 times for county court...

Anyway...  I've never gotten close to serving on a jury...  the one time it looked like I might the prosecutors and defense attorneys came back after lunch break from the selection and announced that they had struck a plea bargain deal so we all got to go...