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A jury has been selected for the second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, after more than a week of intensive jury selection in the high-profile case. The lawyers have selected 10 Seminole County residents -- six jurors and four alternates -- to serve as jurors for a trial which is expected to last two to four weeks, and is sure to be closely watched across the nation. Prosecutors say Zimmerman profiled, pursued and killed the unarmed teen Feb. 26, 2012, in Sanford. Zimmerman says he fired in self-defense after he was attacked...

A jury of six women, five of them white and the other a minority, was picked Thursday to decide the second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer who says he shot an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, in self-defense.

New video footage of the interviews with the jurors in the murder trial of abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell shows one juror talking about how difficult it was to view pictures of the babies Gosnell killed. Jury Foreman David Misko says: “It was definitely hard to see the photos. There was cases where the photos of the babies were blown up and they were right in front of your face and you had to stare–it was definitely hard seeing that.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSVzLrWeDXM&feature=player_embedded

State bill would allow non-citizens to serve as jurors By JUDY LIN ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: Thursday, April 25, 2013 at 12:24 p.m. Last Modified: Thursday, April 25, 2013 at 12:24 p.m. SACRAMENTO — The state Assembly on Thursday passed a bill that would make California the first state in the nation to allow non-citizens who are in the country legally to serve on jury duty.

Male members of a jury are more likely to find a defendant guilty if the accused person is an overweight female. According to a recent study by Yale University psychologists, male – and not female – jurors are also more inclined to believe that a fat woman is a repeat offender who had malicious intent. The researchers gathered a group of 471 pretend peers of varying body sizes and described to them a case of check fraud. They also presented them with one of four images—either a large man, a lean man, a large woman, or a lean woman—and identified...

New Hampshire Governor John Lynch signed HB 146 on June 18, 2012 - which reads: "...a Right of Accused. In all criminal proceedings the court shall permit the defense to inform the jury of its right to judge the facts and the application of the law in relation to the facts in controversy. Short, simple and to the point. Nullification advocate Tim Lynch of the Cato Institute thinks it may not be a game changer, but it's a step in the right direction

It's official. Death is no longer a possible fate for three of four defendants in the January 20007 torture slayings of a Knox County couple. Assistant District Attorney General Leland Price has filed notice of an intention to seek the death penalty as punishment in the deaths of Channon Christian, 21, and boyfriend Christopher Newsom, 23, only against alleged ringleader Lemaricus Davidson. Price this month notified attorneys for Davidson's brother, Letalvis Cobbins, and Cobbins' friend, George Thomas, that he will push for a fate in their cases no more than life without possibility of parole. Because Cobbins' girlfriend, Vanessa Coleman,...

Casey Anthony’s six-week murder trial finally rested today as jurors were sent away to decide whether her two-year-old daughter was the victim of an accidental drowning that she covered up out of fear and grief, or was brutally murdered by a 'pathological liar' who wanted to live free and party. Judge Belvin Perry dispatched the jury in Orlando, Florida, to consider their verdict after the state delivered an emotionally stirring rebuttal to the defence’s closing arguments, telling the panel of seven men and five woman that Caylee Anthony died in June 2008 at the hands of 'the most well documented...

Jurors looked stunned on Thursday as Casey Anthony, who faces the possibility of the death penalty if convicted of murdering her daughter two-year-old Caylee, started laughing in court. As she waited for the afternoon session to begin she smiled broadly, at one trying to cover up her giggles with her hand. Just a couple of hours earlier jurors heard dramatic tape recordings of detectives telling Casey Anthony that she risked being judged as a 'cold-blooded, callous monster' after she lied to them over her daughter’s disappearance

About two out of three people summoned for jury duty each year in South Florida don't show up. Although some are exempt, tens of thousands simply brush it off. And while skipping jury duty is against the law, few are punished because court staffers say the process would be too costly and time consuming. The spike in no-shows follows a change in who is being summoned. Jurors used to be chosen from voter registration databases, but the state in 1998 switched to driver's license rolls as a way to widen the pool.

Juror's research led to murder mistrial By Bob Kalinowski (Staff Writer) Published: January 17, 2011 Legal experts have coined them "Google mistrials." Curious jurors seeking to conduct their own research surf the Internet about facts presented in court, bringing a halt to important court cases and tainting the outcome. Sometimes it's done unwittingly. Other times it's done against a judge's specific directions. On Friday, it ended Lamont Cherry's murder trial in Luzerne County court. A juror admitted to researching medical issues at home on her computer after five hours of deliberations Thursday ended in a deadlocked panel, prompting a cloud...

Share We’ve all been wondering how in the world Blago could have escaped the other 23 counts he was charged with. Today, it has been revealed it was an 11:1 vote and the holdout was a woman who could not be swayed. Chicago Local News writes: “Overall, I’d say everyone was pretty respectful. In the beginning, it was a little more heated, a lot more emotions, voting was defensive. And then we checked ourselves and took emotion out of it,” said Sarnello. “To me, it was pretty clear where we were gonna end about the third day.” They ended in...

The complicated case against Rod Blagojevich involves 24 counts and various schemes. As jurors today move on to Day Six of their deliberations on Blagojevich and his fund-raiser brother, here's some of the evidence they are considering in each of the allegations. THE DEFENSE: Blagojevich engaged in political negotiations with Obama's people for the appointment of Obama friend Valerie Jarrett. Indian fund-raisers approached the Blagojevich camp with a bribe attempt for U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., and they were shot down. According to Robert Blagojevich's testimony: "That's just how I viewed the Indians -- very awkward and clumsy and naive...

CHICAGO -- Rod Blagojevich is an insecure man who talks a lot, but he is not a criminal, his lawyer told jurors yesterday during closing arguments at the ousted Illinois governor's corruption trial. Sam Adam Jr. told jurors that he did not call Blagojevich to testify, as he'd promised at the beginning of the trial, because the government did not prove its case. "I thought he'd sit right up here," Adam said, shouting and pointing at the empty witness chair. "I promised he'd testify. We were wrong. Blame me. "I had no idea that in 2½ months of trial that...

The federal jury has been selected to decide the fate of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Twelve jurors and six alternates have been seated and sworn-in for the four-month trial and opening statements are expected to begin at 1 p.m. Judge James B. Zagel has ordered that jurors' names not be released until after the trial. Zagel postponed a decision on a request by Blagojevich's attorneys to dismiss fraud and racketeering charges against him.

Jurors selected to hear the upcoming criminal case against former Gov. Rod Blagojevich will have their identities withheld from the public until they reach a verdict, the judge who’ll oversee Blagojevich’s trial said Monday. In a meeting with reporters about news-gathering procedures for the trial, U.S. District Court Judge James Zagel expressed concern that people might email or otherwise barrage jurors with opinions about Blagojevich, who has made numerous television and radio appearances since his December 2008 arrest. Jurors are not supposed to discuss trials — or even view news coverage about them — outside of court. Similarly, Zagel said...

Jurors thought ex-Congressman William Jefferson's transgression was more than bribery: Stephanie GraceBy Stephanie Grace, The Times-Picayune April 20, 2010, 7:40AM Almost as soon as a Virginia jury delivered a split verdict on the federal case against U.S. Rep. William Jefferson last summer, an irony emerged: Jurors may have convicted Jefferson on 11 of 16 counts, but they acquitted him on the one charge stemming from the investigation's singularly memorable detail, the $90,000 cash that the feds had found stuffed into Boca Burger and Pillsbury Pie Crust boxes in Jefferson's Washington freezer. Interviews with several jurors in the months since the...

The Supreme Court left intact a sentence of 28 years to life in prison for a college student in Colorado, convicted of sexual assault and other crimes against a household servant. The appeal had the support of the Saudi Arabian government, expressing concern about its many nationals who are in the U.S. as students. The case was Al-Turki v. Colorado (09-700). Colorado courts rejected the challenge by Homaidan Al-Turki, a Saudi national, even though one of the jurors who had sat in the case had volunteered that he thought Muslims would follow the laws of God rather than the laws...

The erratic terror suspect dubbed "Lady Al Qaeda" was tossed from her own trial Tuesday after a courtroom rant declaring she never plotted to blow up New York landmarks. Aafia Siddiqui's diatribe came as a U.S. Army captain described the savage look on her face when she opened fire on a roomful of military personnel in Afghanistan.

HACKENSACK, N.J. – A jury convicted a Florida man Friday of murdering his former son-in-law, rejecting the man's defense that he was too fat to have run up and down a flight of stairs to commit the crime and make a quick getaway. Edward Ates looked down and shook his head in court as he was found guilty of murder and weapons counts for killing Paul Duncsak, who was shot six times at his home in Ramsey, about 25 miles northwest of New York. Ates' "too fat to kill" defense provided an angle to the trial that attracted attention from...