Re:Supreme Court says criminal convictions require unanimous...
by jaywalk on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @10:34AM
(#22935271)
I hope you have the opportunity to serve on a jury for a meaningful case one day. I did, and it really opened my eyes.
It was a young man being charged with a list of crimes, the most serious being negligent homicide. I went into it thinking "oh boy, this kid must be guilty" and by the end, I wished we had the ability to convict the prosecutor of negligence. The kid did nothing wrong.
But the initial vote was 11 to 1 not guilty. The one guilty was a retired guy, and to this day I believe he was just relishing having something to do because he kept us there for an extra day trying to convince him that the kid wasn't guilty. He didn't even have a good reason for the guilty vote either, which was the worst part. Eventually he relented and the kid went free.
The moral of my story is, having a different opinion isn't necessarily a good or useful thing on a jury.
It was a young man being charged with a list of crimes, the most serious being negligent homicide. I went into it thinking "oh boy, this kid must be guilty" and by the end, I wished we had the ability to convict the prosecutor of negligence. The kid did nothing wrong.
But the initial vote was 11 to 1 not guilty. The one guilty was a retired guy, and to this day I believe he was just relishing having something to do because he kept us there for an extra day trying to convince him that the kid wasn't guilty. He didn't even have a good reason for the guilty vote either, which was the worst part. Eventually he relented and the kid went free.
The moral of my story is, having a different opinion isn't necessarily a good or useful thing on a jury.