re: Stuck in jury duty

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Any of yall ever been selected?

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I’ve been summoned two or three times over the years and selected for one jury that I ended up being chosen as foreman.

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Any interesting trials?

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The case we were assigned was an armed robbery & assault case. The defendant, a skinny 19 yr old guy who was about 5’7” & maybe 160 lbs, was accused of going into a tanning bed/video rental place one morning and robbing and pistol whipping the lady clerk who was opening the store. The case against him was based on two things:

1. The clerk picked his picture out from a lineup of local juvenile offenders.

2. A grainy video of a guy in a red hoodie. You could not see his face. But, he had the sleeves pulled up so you could see his forearms.

The defense countered with:

1. His very ancient grandmother, a retired Sunday School teacher, who testified on the morning of the robbery, she cooked him breakfast then his boss came and picked him up to go to work in Bham.

2. His boss, a preacher at a local church, who testified that he picked him up from his grandmother’s house and took him straight to their job site in Bham where they remained until late that day.

3. The owner of the house in Bham, who happened to be an attorney, who testified they were installing cabinets all day that day and did not leave until late that afternoon. They also showed video from the home owner’s security system that showed the boss’s truck parked in his driveway all day without leaving.

4. The prosecution’s own grainy video showing the perp’s forearms, which were from a muscular guy who had forearms at least two or three times larger than this kid’s forearms.

5. The cops who searched the grandmother’s house where they did not find (1) a pistol (2) a red hoodie or (3) the money he was supposed to have stolen.

When both sides rested and we went into the deliberation room, I polled the rest of the jury. All were already in agreement. There was no way this guy did it. We were not in that room more than 5 minutes, if that, before we came back with a “not guilty” verdict.

When we were dismissed I left the court house feeling bad for this kid who had been sitting jail for however long (I think it was like 2-3 months) awaiting trial. I was also horrified at the incompetence of our law enforcement and judicial system for bringing such an obviously flawed case to trial. The sheriff’s dept “investigation” (I use that term loosely) consisted of bringing in a binder with mug shots of every teenager who’d ever been booked for whatever offense and had her pick one out. The one whose pic was picked was the one they chose to prosecute despite the mountain of evidence that there was no way he could be the perp they were looking for. This kid’s only prior offense is he’d been busted with some marijuana and a bong when he was like 17.

I’m 2 for 2 on getting struck

Both of mine were entertaining.

Some scummy arse lawyers out there. Found out which ones I would not want representing me if anything ever were to put me in that position.

Been called twice for county.

Was excused both times without making a jury.

1st time I just missed a tobacco trial that lasted 9 months.

2nd time was coming out of covid. Just got hooked up to wife and was watching a movie on Netflix when they excused us for the week.

Got a retrial in a death penalty case. Do not recommend.

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Ive been on a couple juries before, they'll cause you to lose some faith in humanity.

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I've been on one and that was the way I felt after it was over.

Trial was for a situation that could have been entirely avoided but someone wanted to be an a-hole to their neighbor out of sheer spite.

Defendant lived on a parcel of land that needed an easement to access his home. Easement had been there for 35+ years and was situated as to avoid telephone lines and other large trees. Another neighbor decides to purchase said land off of the current owner (where the easement was situated) and decided that he didn't like the easement going through his property then started harassing the family that used the easement by putting up metal stakes in the middle of the easement. The harassment led to an argument in which the harasser got pushed but the trial was him suing for $250k each for him and his wife for "pain and anguish."