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To: NEPA
How awful! What a discouraging story! I was on a jury in a criminal case, but it was, thankfully, unrelated to child molestation. But it did have a man abusing his girlfriend and there was a child around. We had one woman who wanted to right all the past wrongs by convicting the man, but the rest of us just overruled her. We weren't convinced he was innocent, but the prosecutor just didn't make the case. Presumption of innocence really means something. But the women on our jury were just as concerned to see justice done in THIS case as the men. No difference except the one, and we took care of her.
40 posted on 11/21/2003 11:58:36 AM PST by twigs
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To: twigs
I was on another jury a few years ago and we found the guy innocent. He was trying to beat a DUI charge. He was probably guilty but the DA didn't really do a good job of proving it.

You're right, the presumption of innocence is really important. If a jury can't come to a unanimous decision in a reasonable amount of time it should be majority rule and the holdout(s) go along with the majority. Believe me I didn't want to and a couple others were worried about the desision but you really can't argue with pig headed people.

The pervert in the case I was on got his punishment already anyway. In february back surgery went really bad and the guy can't get erections anymore.

One good thing about jury duty in my county now is that all licensed drivers 18 and over are part of the jury pool, not just registered voters and property tax payers. It seems like I was getting called for jury duty about every 4 or 5 years (but only picked twice).

46 posted on 11/21/2003 12:25:30 PM PST by NEPA
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