I sat as a juror in a murder trial several years ago. My peers accepted nearly every piece of prosecutorial testimony without question, not just cops. It was really eye-opening. Because even if that hadn't happened, the whole concept of lesser included charges meant the man on trial was almost certain to be guilty of something. If it wasn't Murder 1, it was murder 2, or manslaughter, or wreckless endangerment.

In my case the guy was (as best I could conclude) legitimately guilty of one of the lesser included charges, but there was some dodgy testimony, and I was the only one, in my group, to question it, and suggest that it might have some bearing on which of the many charges that might actually make him guilty of. It took quite some convincing to get anyone else to drop to anything lower than the top charge.

While I realize that this sample size of 1 is statistically insignificant, it really seems like if you wind up in court on criminal charges, odds seem to be you're screwed. "Innocent until proven guilty" felt, to me, like a pipedream.

That's why a jury is so large, and conviction requires unanimity. Good for you. How many on your jury?

12 + 2 alternates. The trial itself took about 3 weeks.

1 in 12 being open minded is pretty good odds. Good for you being the one.

I was on a jury a number of years ago on a suspected DUI case where the police officer for the case failed to complete the proper paperwork and record of events at the time of arrest.

As a jury we ended up deciding that the defendant was Not Guilty because without that filed paperwork, it was just two people's recollection of the events and we didn't feel the officer was more trustworthy.

I wouldn't have thought much about it after the fact, except that the prosecution was visibly upset at the decision which made me realize that that was likely not what normally would have happened.

> I wouldn't have thought much about it after the fact, except that the prosecution was visibly upset at the decision which made me realize that that was likely not what normally would have happened.

I'm cynical enough about lawyers (having seen a few in action) that I wonder if "visibly upset" wasn't trying to manipulate someone - either the judge, or the jury members in case they serve on a jury again some day.

This is actually not uncommon at all for DUI cases, usually because jurors can empathize with the defendant more than in other cases (often of similar socioeconomic background, race, etc. which is sometimes less common for other criminal trials).

There's a reason that DUI defendants almost universally request jury trials.