OK, for those of you who haven’t been on juries, here’s what happens when there are adults in the room:
You go down the list of charges. You look at the trial evidence and you see if it supports the charge. You discuss the prosecution’ evidence. You poll each juror whether he or she agrees or disagrees that the evidence supports the prosecution’s charges. After discussion, you vote on that charge. You record the vote. Then you proceed on to the next charge on the list. And on and on and on until you reach the end of the list.
I was in a felony trial jury in Reno where we had seven (only seven) charges on the docket in front of us. It took us a full day to walk down the list of charges, then the list of evidence and our notes from the three day trial and discuss every one of the charges and the prosecution’s evidence.
BTW - it was the women on the jury who wanted to convict on all seven charges and be out of the court in five minutes. If I’m ever up on a jury trial, I’m going to ask my lawyer to get rid of as many women on my jury as possible. I’d never seen anything so irresponsible in my adult life. It came down to a telephone lineman and me putting the brakes on that BS to give the accused the trial he deserved. The women (all seven of them) on that jury were PISSED at us two adult men (one conservative, me, and the lineman was a liberal) who insisted that we were going to take this job seriously and go down the list of charges and discuss the evidence and vote on each charge like adults.
We didn’t back down, even after getting an earful of harangue from two of the women.
In the Gosnell trial, there are 250 charges.
They’re not going to come back with a verdict for a couple of weeks. People who think this is a slam-dunk issue where the jury should be returning out of the jury room in 10 minutes are fools and have no right to be on a jury... and they also shouldn’t have the right to vote, drink, drive or own a gun, because they’re not adults and aren’t serious people. If the jury came out of that jury room in a day and convicted him, his lawyer is going to file an appeal before the end of that day, because NO JURY could conceivably get through 250 charges and actually take a vote on the evidence with a real count and then write down the result of the vote on every charge. Any jury that comes back with a verdict on that many charges in too short a time is asking, begging to have their verdict appealed (and overturned) because they didn’t weight the evidence properly.
Hell, a jury that came back from this trial’s evidence too quickly on this number of charges is begging to have their decision set aside by the trial judge, right there on the spot. Judges can do that, you know. The judge on the case can say “You didn’t examine the evidence, I’m setting aside the verdict. Bang, bang, all rise, you’re free to go.”
I tend to agree.
I thought there were closer to 300 total charges.
Excellent insight NVDave. Thanks!
I thought there were closer to 300 total charges.
You nailed it Dave! I have served as a juror on two felony trials and during the last one, it was the Liberal women who just wanted to convict and go home. God forbid, that I'm ever put on trial, I too, am going to ask my lawyer rid of as many women as he can. BYTW, the defendant was facing 40 years to life!
I was on a jury where a man was being tried for killing his wife. We all knew he was guilty; yet as we were walking into the jury room, one LIBtard woman says: “Oh, the poor man”. The foreman and I responded: “We ain’t leaving here without a conviction”.
A week after the trial, I was talking to the arresting officer and he told me that what the jury did not know was that the man had killed his first wife also and served 20 years!