Juror in Long Island Killing Says He Was Pressured Into a Guilty Verdict

NY Times ^ | December 25, 2007 | COREY KILGANNON and NATE SCHWEBER

[Pilsner]

A few years ago, I lost a DWI jury trial as a prosecutor. A month or so after the trial, one of the jurors came to see me, and tell me how mad she was at two members of the jury. She said that the jury was split 4-2 in favor of a conviction, and that the two jurors who favored a conviction stated that they were not going to change their minds.

The juror said that rather than continue to deliberate, until they reached a verdict, or the Judge declared a mistrial because they could not reach a verdict, she and the other three jurors who favored a conviction changed their votes to "Not Guilty."

Because it was lunch time, and they wanted to go to lunch.

I was more than a little mad when she left my office, but not at the two jurors who voted their conscience.

[Doogle]

watevvvver...:)

[UCANSEE2]

“The problem here is the press attention on one man out of 12 who now says he didn’t stand up for what he believes.”

The ‘press attention’ part is important in figuring out the motive.

IMHO, there are two possibilities.

1) He is a plant for the defense, and he failed, so he is taking it to the press.

2) He is an egotist who watches too much TV.

---

I agree with what you said about jury duty. When I was on jury duty, I had no problem with fellow jurors, nor how we all conducted ourselves, nor our verdict.

Many gripe, or joke about jury duty, and how they easily avoided it.

Jury Duty is the CIVIC duty of Americans, so lying to get out of it is no different than lying to get out of military service.

COPS cannot stop crime.
LAWS cannot stop crime.

Only JUSTICE is effective in stopping crime.

If the ‘smart’ ones, or ‘intelligent’ ones always avoid jury duty, then I say that THEY are the ones responsible for the feeling that one is not SAFE, one will not get TRUE JUSTICE because jurors are all morons.

If Intelligent, reasonable, logical, impartial citizens don’t fulfill their responsibility to our LEGAL SYSTEM, then they leave one of the most IMPORTANT FACTORS of FREEDOM open to bias, and those led by ulterior motives.

In essence, we are cutting our own throats by ruining the intent and practice of our Justice System.

So, IMHO, rather than complain about how bad juries are, we should do something about it.

Like..... show up when you are selected.

[arthurus]

I have been called for several drug cases over the years and having a state AFT boss (now retired)has kept me from actually having to sit through a trial. The fact is I disliked my B-in-Law intensely and was not keen on what I know of his methods but I am happy to let him get me off the hook.

[hocndoc]

Amen!

[Clemenza]

Knowing the likely makeup of said jury, let's say that there were alot of "Vito" and "Tony" types who wanted to see "justice." ;-)

In this case, I will side with the so called perp. Low class thugs of ANY kind who are charging your property deserve lethal force. The sentence was way too harsh. At most, he should've been found guilty of discharge of a firearm in the municipality.

[Grammy]

I have served on 3 juries over the years.

One was for “attempt to possess a weapon by a felon”. Long story but the bottom line was he was showing the cops where the gun was and started to reach for it to hand it to them. They said “let us pick it up”, which he did, but they came back 3 days later to charge him.

The jury was ready to convict him, with little discussion, based on the literal reading of the words.... he *was* trying to pick up a gun.

I pointed out that he was attempting to do the right thing, (hand it to the cops) and it seemed to me that convicting him for doing the right thing was appropriate according to the letter of the law, but not according to the spirit of the law.

We ended up acquitting him.