Babs,
...Should serving as an alternate count?....... Also, the responses in this thread let me know that I'm not as rare as I thought I was; being a person who wanted to serve and not getting the chance. This leads me to wonder;
what if there was a question on the original form, of willingness to serve. Then they could pick jurors from this pool first. Feasible,... or no?
Booman, "willingness to serve" shows a premediatated conviction and the principle of jury pool selection is randomness; therefore, skewing the sample. I do acknowledge that may of the attributes already used (such as voter roles) skew the sample anyway. I'm not the political scientist, only the messenger - please don't shoot me!
Asherman
I've just been browsing through your gallery of paintings and drawings.....They are beautiful! Thanks for sharing them with us.
jjorge
BillW,
...I wanted feedback, but deep inside I sort of concur. It's like the, probability the military pool was weakened by the elimination of the draft. I say sorta', because I don't believe being willing to serve tilts a person in any direction. However, I did indicate 2 pools. just as I would favor that in the military. That way, if you start scraping, in the volunteer pool, you can tap the, "kicking and screaming" pool.
An attribute isn't necessarily good or bad, whatever that means - it just skews the randomness. However, that said, a lot of the jury pools are picked for voter registration. This alone shows willingness of some sort and is definitely an attribute.
OJ's trial wasn't held in the affluent Brentwood district where he would have gotten a much "fairer" trial. It was put in the downtown district where Cocran knew he stood a chance. Why do Republicans get all trials in the DC Federal Courts - they have been able to pack these courts for years.
BTW, a Huston Judge got irritated that he couldn't get a full jury pool, so he went out on the street and selection pool based solely on the few questions he was allowed to ask. So it goes!
I know I shouldn't have been offended Jespah, but it was embarrassing. I think the thing that bothered me the most was that I lost a days pay for nothing. I guess I just need to find a better way to look at it.
WHAT!...TheOJ trial wasn't fair?
Yes, the smog is much, much worse downtown - didn't you know?
Booman, do you think the DC political trials are fair?
Good golly, Joanne - it isn't as if it is
all over, I think we all have a good
many years ahead of us - you never
know, you MAY yet be selected for duty
& get an interesting trial also. We still
have quite a few years to go, right? :wink:
In answer to your question; I've been called upon twice to serve on jury duty. The first one was a simple civil suit by an ex-employee who claimed he was not paid for his services. The employer decided to settle the claim before the case ended, so we were dismissed.
Babs asked me to expound on the jury duty I served in the rape-murder case discussed in another A2K forum. This one lasted for three months. According to the security sheriff at the entrance of the court house, he told us that there aren't many cases in Santa Clara County (in California) that lasts three months. We saw many turnovers of people serving jury duty in the court house, and many expressed their surprise at the length of our case. People who have served on jury duty know that we are restricted from discussing the case with anybody, including our spouse, while we are serving. We were also restricted from listening to the radio, watch the news channels on t.v., and read and newspaper. It was really a bummer, because I love reading the newspaper "every" morning.
The case: A young man of 21 was charged with the rape-murder of a high school girl in Gilroy, California. The prosecuting attorney's opening statement was to the effect that although there was no eye-witness, they had plenty of circumstantial evidence to prove his guilt. The defense attorney's opening statement was to the effect that all the circumstantial evidence the prosecution has will be disproved.
The body of the young girl was found in a public park, covered with leaves, in Gilroy in a dry creek by a man. By the time the police and detectives arrived on the scene, the body had been there over 72 hours.
The police took photos of the crime scene and the body after sunset, so they used flood lights to take the photos. They took the photos of tire tracks, and measured the distance between the body and the tire tracks. Since the car was parked at a higher level than the dry creek, somebody had to carry the body from the car to the bottom of the creek, a distance of about 15 feet, with a downgrade of about 30 degrees - not an easy feat.
Our case used the same forensic lab as the OJ Simpson case, Cellmark Labs. Three criminalists from the local police department were witnesses for the prosecution. The prosecution also used a high tech company in Sunnyvale to improve the washed out photos taken at the crime scene, because of the high intensity lights. The most interesting witness for the prosecution was a tire expert; he designed tires for 25 years. The prosecution also presented two girls from the mid-west, both victims of rape by this young man.
Cellmark Labs was used to identify any DNA from the crime scene to the defendant. Since semen could not be detected in the dead body, the main question raised was "how long does semen live in a dead body." Since there was nobody to volunteer for such an investigation, they didn?'t have the answer. The defense claimed that it could not be the defendant, because the young man's ejaculation produced anywhere from 35 million to 45 million sperms, and none were detected.
The criminalists took the sample from the dead body with cotton swabs with long sticks.
Although the cotton swabs did not produce any positive identification, all three criminalists opined that the defendant was guilty of rape.
The prosecution produced many photos from the crime scene. Both before and after improvements to modify the glare. The photo lab did an excellent job of improving those photos. The photos included tire tracks.
The tire expert used the photos and the actual tires from the defendant's car. He explained all the different design aspects of tires, and why it was his conclusion that the tires on the defendant's car matched the photos at the crime scene. The defense attorney's only argument was that the spread of the tires was too wide to match the auto used by the defendant.
The two young girls from the mid-west were witnesses for the prosecution. They explained how they were raped by the defendant. The similarities of the girl he killed, and the two witnesses were very close. They were driven out to an isolated area and raped. The defendant served prison time for his crimes in the mid-west.
The defendant met the girl in Gilroy, because his father was dating the young girl's mother of three girls. The defendant tagged along with his father when he visited the young girl's home, and became friendly with the victim. On one occasion, the defendant borrowed his cousin's car, and drove to the girl's home.
The girl's mother and her two sisters drove to Carmel to buy some Halloween costumes when the defendant arrived at their home. He claimed that he drove the victim to a local liquor store to buy a pack of cigarettes. The prosecution produced the cash register tape that did not indicate any sales of cigarette during the time period the defendant claimed they were at the store. However, the defendant claimed that the girl shared the pack of cigarettes with him, so he knows for sure they were there, and she bought the cigarettes. He claimed he took her back home soon after.
A young couple across the street were painting the living room of their house, and they saw when the car arrived, and when the car drove away. But they never saw the car return to the house.
When the police asked the defendant where he was the day of the crime, he claimed he was at home. However, a police stopped the defendant's car about 12-midnight on the day of the murder, because the car had tinted glass windows.
The defendant's brother also was a witness for the prosecution. He saw his brother go to the front window to look out often on the next day of the crime as if he was expecting somebody to come over. He assumed it was the police. The defendant also washed the car. Something he never did before.
During the trial, the prosecution's witness was the Superintendent of Parks. He identified all the bay trees in Gilroy, all totaled less than about a two dozen or so. The parking area of the park where the car's tire tracks were found had a bay tree.
Something I learned after the trial, because my wife saved clippings of our case from the newspaper. The prosecution considered doing a DNA test on the bay leaves found in the trunk of the car to match it to the bay tree in the park.
The two jurors that first voted "not guilty" are both knowledgeable about chemistry and veterinary care. The chemist argued the point about why there wasn't a trace of semen in the victim. We had a couple of IBM scientists that produced the mathematical odds of semen showing up in a dead body vs. a live one after 72 hours. We also repeated the criminalists' opinion of guilt: people that work with these kinds of evidence every day must be more knowledgeable about these matters. The other juror worked in veterinary care, and it was her opinion that body fluids will last over 72 hours in a dead body. It was inconceivable to her that a man that ejaculates over 35 million sperms would not leave a trace. This was the same argument presented by the defense attorney.
The defense attorney asked us to consider two things: the spread of the tires did not match the defendant's car, and there was no semen to prove guilt. The prosecution told us why the circumstantial evidence was so over-whelming, and we had no choice but to find the defendant guilty.
The trial was over, and the judge told us to select a foreman. Guess who got selected?
We were left with the responsibility to arrive at a verdict; guilty or not guilty. After four days of deliberations, we had a hung jury. The judge told us to go back and talk things over. We convinced the other two jurors why our decision to find the defendant guilty was so strong. They finally agreed, and each of us declared our "guilty" plea in the court room.
Before the penalty phase, we heard from the victim's mother. She was very angry because it took justice so long to bring their case to trial. I think it was four years. She asked for the death penalty.
We heard pleas from the defendant's grandmother and brother. The grandmother told us about the time when the defendant's penis was burned by his step-mother when he was eleven years old. She also told us how the defendant never really had a mother or father, and asked us to let him live. His brother also asked us for mercy, and to let his brother live.
We were given the responsibility to determine the penalty with "special circumstances" which means "death or life in prison without the possibility of parole." The judge told us to select another foreman, but guess who got selected?
Michael Jason ______ is now serving a life in prison without the possibility of parole.
I hope this is the first and last time I serve in a murder trial, and also that my experience have some meaning to people who have never served in a criminal case.
Cicerone imposter
Since arriving in this country 8 years ago, I have received jury summonses 18 times! Since I'm not yet a U.S. citizen, I cannot serve, but they keep on coming! I have called and explained over and over again and they tell me that it is not the voting register they use but the tax returns, so there you go!
In Ireland, I was on a jury for two separate cases and real exciting they were too!!
#1 A young man who burglarized a house - lasted one day. There was no real evidence and the girls whose house it was acted like a pair of idiots and revealed they had a grudge against the accused so we found "not guilty".
#2 A young man (and I use that term loosely) who stole a horse (yes, a horse!). Remember we're talking Ireland - it wasn't unusual for a city-lad to drive into the country with his pals and steal a horse out of a field, then ride it back to the city and give all his friends a ride for a few shillings each. Anyway it was easy to convict since everyone, and by that I mean his "friends", admitted to him stealing the horse.
Anyways, this was a dozen years ago when things were a little less lawyerly in Dublin, and the judge granted our request to impose punishment on the "young man". We sentenced him to three months of volunteer work for the farmer, cleaning out the stables and shovelling the horse-****. Better than a fine!
I'm sure he hated it but we thought it was very appropriate and would make him think twice in the future.
Plus I admit to an evil picture forming in my mind of him shovelling on his weekends getting ribbed by his mates in the pub later!
Wow this is getting more interesting by the minute!!
An immigrant gets called innumerable times even
though he is not a naturalized citizen yet - based
on income tax returns??? How odd. Geez, Booman
there is just no rhyme or reason why you have yet to
be called upon to serve on a jury.
*Based on a willingness to serve - would be the
worst of all things....almost as bad as having
professional jurors... people who do it for the fun
of it, or the excitement, or the feeling of control
over another human beings life, or they are criminals
themselves who have not been caught yet & have their
very own little concept of "justice"that could be quite
odd and/or dangerous, after all. There are many
possible reasons why "willingness to serve" could
spell BIG TROUBLE!
*Thanks C.I. for sharing your jury story with us again.
I have never met another person who has been
involved in such a "big deal" of a trial like murder and
rape. Mine was only an arson case, and no one was
harmed.
*Gezzy - any intelligent lawyer has to know certain
characteristic attributes about people & they hone their skills
on this daily - example, a female within a certain income range,
at a certain age, with or without kids, married, or unmarried,
all factors would be considered in their choice of - is she going
to make the 1 juror who kills our case, or could this be the
one juror who clinches our case. It has little to do with will
the individual makes a good juror, or a bad juror. It is just
stuff based on what the lawyer sees as being good for HIS
side of the case. I would bet that in the murder/rape case
C.I. was a jurist in...the lawyers avoided young female
jurors like the plague. And they have so much statistical
crap figured out that they really do make the most of their
choices to keep or to kick off a juror. It actually has zilch
to do with you - it all has to do with the lawyer wanting to
WIN THE CASE - no matter what.
Babs, You are right on that point that our jury did not have any young woman on it. We can assume they will be hell-bent in finding the defendant guilty even with less circumstantial evidence - would be my presumption. c.i.
You know, that is strange, now that you mention it. I'm 52 years of age, and i've never once been called for jury duty . . .
Well, it's cuz you don't vote or pay your taxes, jefe...
Oh yeah . . . there is that . . .
When I lived in L.A., a flurry of summonses. Everywhere else, nada. Proof, as if any were needed, that L.A. is a hotbed of bad, bad people doing bad, bad things.
pd, members of the FBDOTW (Future Benevolent-Dictators-of-the-World) are exempt, ya know.
Patiodog and Setana...nice routine..
Babs let me clarify; I have been called several times,, I just miss the cut usually. I have been called a few times in the last four years, but I am hampered by paralysis, and living in a building with no elevator. This will probably be overcome someday
...As for that professional juror thing; I did sit through one trial as an alternate, and it wasn't like "Law 'N Order". Every questioning, cross-examination, and summation, took an hour or two. We all fought to stay awoke, and we were interested! In other words, I would certainly have my curiosity, and sense of civic duty, fulfilled after one trial.
