I recently finished a long stint as a juror. It was a criminal case and a pretty bad one–dead bodies with multiple bullets to their heads. There was no direct evidence, but a lot of circumstantial stuff and testimony that pointed to the defendant. Guilt seemed pretty clear, but it was hard for the Jury to come to a verdict. In the end, we were deadlocked on most of the charges. While we found the defendant guilty of multiple counts of conspiracy to murder, we could not all agree–beyond a reasonable doubt–that he was the conspirator who pulled the trigger.
The problem wasn’t the circumstantial evidence, as that collection of details–at face value–made a pretty good case. No, the real problem was that almost everybody–every witness, the State’s Attorney and the Defense Attorney–seemed to be an unreliable narrator.
Everybody was blowing smoke. Everyday buckets of red herrings were dumped on our laps. Issues, names and meaningless data points were mentioned without any attempt to back them up or even making any effort to link them to the case. The purpose was to confuse the jury and pull focus from the facts of the case. Statements were twisted in real time. Attorneys selectively rephrased testimony and words never spoken by a witness were then presented as “facts”. Witnesses and attorneys made shit up and sometimes, clear nonsense was offered up as something we should remember. We had to wade through a sea of intentional and unintentional contradictions.
I found that years of blogging and paying attention to our Nation’s politics and politicians made me a better juror. This world I follow is filled with unreliable narrators. It is filled with folks who make shit up, who prefer drama over facts and who are willing to say almost anything if they think it helps them score a point, secure a vote or win a battle.
In the days since this long and draining trial ended I have been catching up on weeks worth of missed work at my day job. I’ve been following the news and blogs, but I’ve had little time to post. And while I’m not surprised, I have been struck by how much of our political discourse is driven by unreliable narrators. It is a world of nonsense and overly spun factoids that turn out to be half true at best.
For example, the other day I was driving home from work and there was Alan Greenspan on the radio explaining how efforts at stimulus spending had prevented our Galtian Overlords from investing in the recovery. I listened for a few moments. Does anybody really still trust this guy about the economy–or anything? Is there really any word string he could utter that should be taken as reliable? And yet, this walking epic failure and liar still gets a platform for his Galtian nonsense.
So called news organizations like Politico and Fox have built their business models on being unreliable narrators. Many others are following their lead. Dirtbags like Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed are treated as a serious persons. Being epically wrong is job security for the pundit class.
It is easy to throw one’s hands in the air, turn it all off, take the dog for a walk, work in the garden, cook a meal or anything to avoid the bullshit. And yet I can’t walk away.
When called to serve on a jury, I took my duties as a citizen seriously. Sure, it was a pain in the ass and a time suck. Worse it was a pretty disturbing case with a thicket of bullshit surrounding just a handful of facts. It was not easy, but I took it as my duty. So did the other Jurors. We were very serious about our responsibility to the law, the defendant, our community and justice. I found the experience to be a very hopeful sign.
We were a random group that took being citizens as a serious duty. The experience proved to me that folks still care. That they recognize that being a Citizen of the United States comes with duties and obligations. That each of us has an active role role to play and that we have a duty to be informed–and to be engaged.
Maybe my experience was unique, but in a world gone seemingly mad I took my service as a juror as a sign of hope. Perhaps we will survive. But then again…
Anyway, take this as a long-winded open thread.
Cheers
Warren Terra
Thanks for your service. There’s a joke, of sorts, about a “jury composed of twelve men and women too (lazy, stupid, versions vary) to get out of jury duty”. I don’t think the line is terribly accurate – the claim at least is that they’ve made it very hard to get out of showing up, although I suppose one can appear to be a tremendous prick so as to avoid getting empaneled – but certainly the line doesn’t represent the system we need for a just society. So I’m glad to see thoughtful people like you serving, and from your post it sounds like your fellow jurors were also taking the process with appropriate seriousness.
TaMara (BHF)
Thank you for not only serving, but taking it seriously. I salute you.
Shadow's Mom
Thank you for your service. On my last call-up, the case was settled before jury selection. I consider jury duty a privilege, an honor and a civic responsibility. It is gratifying to hear that the jurors with whom you served were prepared to perform that responsibility seriously and soberly.
DPirate
Good job. I am up for jury duty again in our little town. You get picked for 3 month intervals, but trials are really rare. Everybody gets coerced into plea deals.
Ken
I have to say: testimony mischaraterised, facts not in evidence put before the jury. Sounds like real inattentive lawyers and an out to lunch judge.
Dennis G.
@Warren Terra:
I guess in some ways I did not expected folks to be serious and so that was a nice surprise. The sense of duty was strong. And I hope that is always the case, but I suspect it is not always so.
Cheers
Fwiffo
That was my jury experience as well (mine involved the rape of a minor, instead of a murder.) More than anything, I got the feeling that the cops involved in the case just didn’t care about the job at all, much less making anything easier for the jury. They just wanted a guilty verdict, and can you please do it quickly so we can get home in time for our soaps.
ms badger
Thank you for your service. It is what once was expected of citizens, and valued.
Mike E
Sounds like it was an eye-opener, and a really tough slog. My only jury duty was on a civil trial panel, and it was horrible. A house flip done “between friends” that went from snafu to fubar to lawsuit. The best part, beside rendering our verdict (which split the baby, a “fuck you” to the parties) was when we were sent to our jury room so I could catch a glimpse of the red tail hawks that hunted pigeons in between the bank buildings downtown, if I was lucky. I longed for a criminal trial instead; your experience makes me think it wouldn’t have been any different.
guckertgannon
I was on a jury for an assault and battery case wherein it was clear that there had been assault and battery by at least the accused, because the victim had sustained an injury requiring stitches.
We wound up acquitting, however, because it was so obvious that both the victim and accused were lying so much. The victim’s lying was probably orchestrated by the prosecution; in any case, it was so clearly not the truth that we threw our hands and said, Can’t solve this one according to the law, much less beyond reasonable doubt.
I too was wonderfully impressed by how seriously all jury members took their responsibility. It does leave one hopeful.
slag
I like seeing different posters discuss the same topic in a day (even if it’s unintentional). These variations on a theme help me refine my own perspective sometimes. And I like this citizen jurist metaphor you’ve got going here. Nice post, Dengre.
gex
@Warren Terra: It’s probably helpful that people who aren’t interested in jury duty work so hard to avoid it. Although it would be better to have more people like Dennis G.
@guckertgannon: Love the handle.
Mike Goetz
Long tail hawks hunting pigeons is actually a good metaphor for our legal system.
Arclite
Great analysis and way to describe “unreliable narrators”
Martin
Same thing happened with me on a jury. It was a minor incident – a fender bender that supposedly one driver then got out and kicked in the door of the other car and made threats and beat the guy up. The prosecutor came in like these were the fucking Nuremberg trials, and how the defendant (this little 5’2″ middle-aged Vietnamese dude) was this unholy menace to society. The victims had the same attitude. I actually let a laugh loose at one point because it was such melodramatic bullshit. We found the guy not guilty. Not much convincing was needed in the jury room.
Afterword the prosecutor stopped us and asked what caused us to rule for the defendant. A few others gave polite answers. I interrupted and told him that he was ‘bullshitting us on the magnitude of the incident. The victims called to the stand were overprepared and overdramatic. The only two people in the room that weren’t trying to bullshit us were the judge and the defendant.’ Everyone nodded.
I’m a public employee, so I get called every year. I’m happy to go, but I just wish everyone would stop acting like they’re on Law and Order and just be honest in the courtroom. Jurors aren’t stupid.
jfxgillis
Dennis:
Beautifully done.
Walker
I am impressed they let you be a juror in the first place. Generally for a high-profile trial like this, someone with your background would be dinged automatically.
I have some unfortunate experience concerning a family member and the justice system. While he was clearly guilty, the tactics of the police and the DA were morally questionable throughout the entire case.
sfinny
In September I was called for jury duty and it turned out to be the first Gitmo detainee civilian trial, Ghailani. I didn’t get selected but while I had reservations about the time away from work, the sense of duty was stronger. Not to mention I was extremely curious about the actual case and the evidence, rather than the stuff in the press. Sounds like the spin continues even in the courtroom.
I was also impressed with the people there, including the other prospective jurors, the clerks, the judge. Overall it was a positive experience and a counter to my usual pessimism.
Scamp Dog
I served on a jury a few years back. As in your case, we took it seriously. Fortunately, my trial was a one-day affair. It was a domestic violence case, and it turned out that the prosecutor had tried to convict the woman and failed, and now they were trying to convict the man for the same incident.
We came to the conclusion that her story didn’t hang together, but that neither of them would win good behavior awards. The more I think about it now, the less I’m impressed with the prosecutor’s office. “Well, we couldn’t get her, let’s try getting him!” Did they not try to figure things out before running off and starting a trial?
Keith G
A jury of your peers is both a wonderful right and a very frightening proposition.
I served as a jury foreman on a multiple day violent crime case. I was awestruck by the process and so stressed out that after being released after completeing our duty, I cried on the drive home.
Mike in NC
Lewis Black did a great segment on the Daily Show tonight about how Donald Trump is both a Birther and a likely GOP presidential candidate in 2012.
Would love to see that sociopath asshole on a ticket with Scott Walker as VP. The campaign slogan could be “Fuck You America!”.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Thank you for taking it so seriously. Your comments are heartening, especially on the reasonable doubt issue. After a 3rd local murder trial I followed (1st trial conviction overturned due to juror experiment; 2d trial: deadlocked jury) for which a juror told the press” we didn’t think the defense proved to us he wasn’t guilty,” I’m wary and weary. I may assist with the appeal as it looks like the new trial motion will be denied.
asiangrrlMN
I have never made it past the pre-trial questioning. I don’t think I ever would, frankly. Kudos to you, dengre, for taking your civic duty so seriously.
General Stuck
Jeebus, tell me about it. Though I am exploring ways to tip toe around the bullshit, with only minor success. I do feel fortunate that there is a guy in the WH, while way smarter than me, is at least on fairly close wavelength of general world view and techniques for problem solving that I mostly approve of. That has never been the case in my lifetime, but all the other cacophony of bullshit is just not worth the hassle of getting caught up in. So I try to focus on the actual players in this democracy, or the main ones anyway, and tune out the rest as best can.
As for jury duty, I recently got a permanent dismissal status for can’t hear out of one ear, and barely hear out of the other. This doesn’t disappoint me.
General Stuck
@General Stuck:
And Dennis, I was meaning to ask you, do you write for any other blog, or some other venue?
dmbeaster
Politics and sex – the two forums in which you can still say or do most anything without much consequence.
Heh – its the libertarian ideal – a true free marketplace in which bad behavior relies solely on disapproval of the people in the market to police participants.
Mike E
@Martin: We found the overt fluff jobs by both counsels to be a waste of time at best, a slap in the face at worse. I was an experienced door canvasser at the time, and I just wanted to go up to them and say, “Quit selling us, it makes you look really stupid.” My fellow jurors were fed up by the bullshit as well, though pretty good sports about it.
ETA@asiangrrlMN: my lifelong virulent opposition to the death penalty would probably bar me from being empaneled on a criminal trial too, also.
Frank
We all need lessons in how to identify strawmen, un-reliable narrators, ad-homin attacks etc. I’m just starting to get a reliable bs detector and it took 40 years. We need a little blog by an expert to help those who recognize something is wrong but need that little help to see the big hole in the argument.
I’m not saying, tell what to think but show us an example of rhetorical tricks to build critical thinking\BS detector Mad Skiilz. It’s taking too long to realize we are being had. If you stop the con before it happens, there is less damage.
Omnes Omnibus
For all of you who are jurors and take it seriously, thank you. My clients and I depend on people like you to resolve problems that may often seem little to an outsider but can be quite huge to the participants. A lot of works goes into preparation by the lawyers and a lot of money and, as significant, worry is expended by the parties. The best we can hope for is to have jurors take it seriously and do their best to make the right decision.
Mike
I was on jury duty not terribly long ago, and I saw the same seriousness, the same sense of responsibility. It gave me hope too.
For all the bullshit in the legal system, the goofiest most primitive piece – hey, let’s get a dozen random schmoes who don’t know anything about the law and didn’t even volunteer pay them five bucks a day and make it all come down to them – is the part that works the best.
MikeBoyScout
Being a citizen requires being not only ever vigilant but volunteering to wade through and knock down unreliable narrators regularly. Thanks for your honorable public service.
slag
@Frank:
I’m with you and have often thought the interwebs could provide useful tools in this direction. But eventually, the cynicism creeps in and I default to the old “People are going to believe what they want to believe” truism. Sadly, the cost-benefit analysis doesn’t seem to shake out when it comes to providing these resources since the market for them appears to be way too small.
However, here’s a quick and useful page where anyone can easily acquire some basic BSdetector building blocks: http://www.astunit.com/astrocrud/flaws.htm.
sfinny
@Omnes Omnibus: This is why I have always felt that being on jury is a responsibility. First, my family has some experience as an injured person trying to recoup costs of an injury. Second, I have the personal experience of being sued, very scary and not yet resolved. I’d like to think that in any scenario there were a group of interested people to resolve these issues.
freelancer
@Frank:
Start listening to The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. And reading astronomer Phil Plait, among others.
Linda Featheringill
@Frank:
Late bloomer in the BS Detection Department:
Interesting. My BS senses flowered when I was about 10 years old. It actually complicated my childhood. Damn but adults lie a lot! And they really don’t like being told about it!
Then a few years later I realized that we lie to ourselves, too. In fact, being honest with yourself is often quite difficult.
asiangrrlMN
@Omnes Omnibus: I would take it seriously if I ever made it onto a jury, but neither side wants me, apparently.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Anyone who knows the story The Emperor’s New Clothes relates to the kid in the story. No one wants to admit that they are one of the rest of the adoring subjects.
freelancer
@freelancer:
Also, Randi.org, and Michael Shermer presents Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit.
Sagan’s book The Demon-Haunted World is pretty much its own course on Skepticism and a great place to start.
slag
@freelancer: Interesting that the astronomers and astrophysicists seem to be leading the way in this arena. I sometimes wonder if astrology sensitivities have anything to do with that.
kdaug
Distressingly, “Jury of one’s peers” doesn’t come with the Balloon Juice Stamp of Approval(tm).
Annamal
I was a jury member on a trial (in New Zealand which consistanly comes in the top 3 for lack of corruption in the public service) where a police officer seriously tried to convince us that a toilet cleaning brush was a bowl of meth (she was on a videotape holding it).
This did not exactly build my confidence in the police force.
Omnes Omnibus
@asiangrrlMN: Jury selection can be kind of fun. I try to ask questions that will get jurors to talk and reveal something about themselves, either pro or con from my point of view. In the end, there is a certain amount of going with your gut that comes into play.
asiangrrlMN
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, the trial for which I was questioned was a crim sex. The defendant’s attorney was…being investigated for sexually harassing his aide (I KNEW he looked familiar). Anyway, at one point, he asked if any of us had been sexually harassed/molested/abused, and then he made the people who said yes say what their experience had been. One guy related his, and other potential jurors laughed. I refused to answer, and as the defendant’s attorney was about to press me for an answer, the judge said, “I think we know her views by now.”
That left me pretty bitter about lawyers, I’ll tell you.
ETA: It bothered me that both lawyers seemed to think that having an opinion on something meant one could not be unbiased.
Laura
I serve every so often as an expert witness in criminal cases. I almost always find myself moved nearly to tears by the jury. 12 people paying close attention–you can see by their faces and body postures that they take their job very seriously….justice embodied. The other players…well, it’s a let-down seeing how many people see their job as theater, and what short-shrift the truth gets. (On the other hand, watching a really good attorney at work–someone who’s working, not acting– is as fun as a great chess game.)
Thanks for your contribution to justice.
Mary G
I was always getting called when I lived in LA County, I guess because I showed up. I almost never made it anywhere past first or second challenge. I was excused from a rape trial down the hall from the OJ
trialcircus before a woman who worked in the DA’s office! I guess the defense attorneys thought that the look of disgust on my face pertained to the fact that their proof consisted of bite marks on the victim’s body, which matched to the defendant. What horrified me was the thought of taking three hours each way to drive eight miles downtown, park, make it into the courthouse, go through two separate security checks and finally get into one of the few overwhelmed elevators to the ninth floor.freelancer
@slag:
Well, I would include Neil Tyson as a fellow Skeptic, but the producer of the Skeptics’ Guide is a Academic Neurologist at Yale named Steven Novella. His work promoting critical thinking has been quite amazing considering he does it in his spare time.
Don K
The only time I was on a jury was in the late 90’s, on a criminal trial, and I also was impressed by how seriously people (a mixture of housewives, retirees, employees, and businessmen) took the process, and how they wanted justice both for the victim and the accused.
Now that I’m retired, I’ve grown a beard, and I’ve read that neither prosecutors (because they think I’m a DFH) nor defense attorneys (because they think I’m a redneck) want me on the jury…
Omnes Omnibus
@asiangrrlMN: I can see where that would be a crappy experience. FWIW the lawyers do need to know things about jurors. However, if I were a defending in a case like that and someone did not want to answer, I would not press. I would simply strike that juror. No need to make it unpleasant for someone and also no need to look like a dickhead in front of the other jurors. It is never too soon to start winning the jury over. ;-)
Hermione Granger-Weasley
Catalepsis, fact-blocking and backfire effect.
The biological basis of belief.
It can take 10,000 reps to unlearn something once learned.
I suppose it was a fitness enhancement in the EEA that kept us alive long to reproduce.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@asiangrrlMN:
Completely OT, but did you get hit with all that sleet, ice and snow that’s starting to descend upon us now?
And whassup? Haven’t seen you in a while…Here, anyway.
slag
@freelancer: Yeah. I’ve already been checking him out. Looks like good stuff!
Neil deGrasse Tyson is seemingly a skeptic, true. But astronomers, in general, seem to be overrepresented in this area. That said, it could the just the circles I run in or the fact that astronomy may be a fairly attractive topic for media. Dunno.
asiangrrlMN
@Omnes Omnibus: Ha! That’s a good point. I think I would handle it much better now. But, I don’t understand why an attorney needs to know the details beyond, “Yes, this happened.” At any rate, I don’t think I would have been a good juror at the time.
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Yes, we did. We’re supposed to get up to five inches of snow/rain/hail/sleet.
I’ve been lying low. Plus, I’m trying to rejigger my sleep schedule which means not as much time with the late-night crowd. Boo.
How you be?
Tom
@slag:
Astrology is a big part of it (is there a newspaper out there that doesn’t have an astrology column?), but there’s also the amount of space related BS than grips the internet every once in a while. The last few months have been especially bad (Supermoon, 2012, the 2000 year old zodiac shift)
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@asiangrrlMN:
I’m….Meh.
But the Packers won the Super Bowl, so I’ve got that to ride on for a while.
burnspbesq
Among other supposed benefits, a law degree virtually guarantees that you will never sit on a jury. I show up every time I’m called, but I’ve never come close to getting empaneled.
slag
@Hermione Granger-Weasley: Interesting how the real drop in approval didn’t happen until the 2010 election season. Sad to see yet another reminder of how effective negative campaigning can be.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@burnspbesq:
Oh, there you go again, bragging about the law degree thing. Sheesh!
asiangrrlMN
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Aw. Sorry to hear that. I’ve been struggling with the blahs, too.
My first endorsement as a Republican candidate for prez.
And, my take on Pawlenty’s announcement that he’s formally forming a committee.
Time for dinner!
Calouste
You are aware that most politicians, and all attorneys, are
liarslawyers?Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@burnspbesq:
Oh, and why was it I thought of you right away when I saw the headline of this TNC post?
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@asiangrrlMN:
OMG! Your endorser looks like Newman (my kid’s little brother) when he was that age!
Allan
I had a challenging and somewhat frustrating experience similar to yours. My case was about embezzlement, and the defendant was the male small fry possible co-conspirator of the big fish con-woman who had taken a small business owner to the cleaners by sleeping with him, gaining his confidence, then turning payroll (which she ran) into a slot machine that kept coming up cherries for her to the tune of a couple hundred grand.
Our defendant’s crime was mainly that he was hired at the company by the con-woman, and appeared to be her boyfriend.
Only two of us on the jury were not completely taken in by the salacious story woven by the DA, and the thing the other jurors were most interested in once they got to the jury room was getting at the driver’s license photo of the con-woman to see if she was hot. (She wasn’t, to their great disappointment.)
It took the two of us (I have a background in human resources and the other juror was a doctor) digging in our heels and poking hole after hole in the premises and implications of the DA’s case to force the jury to agree to completely audit the payroll records. When we were done, the two of us had made our case that the defendant had every reason to believe he was entitled to all but a portion of the payments he had received, and excluded everything except money he received after she implemented direct deposit for him and herself and proceeded to pay them both twice each pay period, once by DD and the same amount by check.
The total amount we found him guilty of taking from the company dropped below the threshold for the more serious charge he faced, and I suspected that his conviction would be used to flip him to testify against the big fish in exchange for a minimal sentence.
So by the end it felt as if justice had been done, but it was depressing to see how easily the other jurors had been manipulated by the DA, and how the defense attorney had failed to make her case on the crucial point that a man who shows up to work, reports to a person empowered by the company to issue payroll, and completes the tasks assigned to him, is not a criminal even if he’s banging her after-hours.
asiangrrlMN
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Isn’t he cute as all Hades? His father was a good sport with me constantly badgering him (the father) to get his kid to make me a video. I love it!
And, we’re getting snow. I haz a happy.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@asiangrrlMN:
He is, indeed.
When I hit the lotto and take my driving tour of the nation to see people I know from the blogosphere, Newman’s coming with me. Dude’s a total chick-magnet.
No, I’m not too proud to ride the coattails of a nine-year old.
Xenos
@Frank:
Back in the 19th century they did not teach ‘English’ to the gentlemen at college, they taught ‘Rhetoric’. The distinction is an important one.
I was lucky enough to get some formal education in rhetoric because I studied Chaucer for my English A-levels with a teacher who worked out the exact rhetorical techniques being used line by line in the ‘Franklin’s Tale’. The Franklin was such a pompous bourgeois twit that he had to melodramatically overuse every trick in the book. I did not see the subject again until law school, where they teach it in negotiation and trial practice classes so you can be ready to respond to the varieties of dishonesty out there.
For the rest of the population, though, it is a subject strangely skipped in education. If we as a population knew it better we might handle the onslaught of information and opinion a bit better.
slag
@Tom:
Yeah. But my horoscope had already warned me about all that stuff, so I felt prepared.
Seriously, the stars and other galaxies do offer up a lot of potential for romance. Even more than the mountains and oceans here on earth, I suppose. So, I can see how astronomers might be inclined to go on the offensive in this area. If that is, indeed, what’s going on.
asiangrrlMN
@Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again): Hey, man. Use what ya got!
And with that, I’m outie. Night, all!
MattR
@Xenos:
I am guessing there may be a cause-effect relationship there. Those who make m(b)illions manipulating the population as they try to navigate that onslaught don’t want us to have the tools to make the right decisions.
slag
@asiangrrlMN: Sleep well and stay warm!
Elizabelle
NYTimes: Glenn Beck considering starting his own cable channel.
Will it be Planet Crazy or End O’ Times TV?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/business/media/23beck.html?hp
And now to read Dennis G’s more thoughtful piece. Go juries.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
@asiangrrlMN:
G’night!
hitchhiker
Several years ago I found myself foaming milk in Starbucks for the insurance benefits after somebody in my family had a catastrophic injury and we couldn’t afford health benefits any other way. (Sbux gives all employees working more than 20 hrs per week the option to have health care. I know.) Anyway, I got called to jury duty and — halleluiah! — it was a complex federal case with 9 defendants and more than a hundred charges. I was going to be with grownups asked to do real thinking and get paid more than my barista gig AND keep my health care.
Spent the next two months in Judge Coughenor’s courtroom in Seattle. He’s the one who presided over the Ressam case in 2001. Smart guy.
The case we got was about tax fraud on a grand and grandiose scale, with defendants who were the most bizarre mix of true believers in the gold standard, sly hucksters trying to get rich easy, and one terrified Christian couple who really thought God’s will was that they help people avoid giving away their money. It took 2 months to hear all the evidence, which included clandestine tape-recordings, videos made from inside suitcases, and readings from the Bible and the constitution by the two true-believer defendants who were pro se.
Hog heaven for me . . . until we got the case at long last, and I discovered that about half the jury had not understood the scheme, another few had understood it but thought paying taxes was evil anyway, and a final few of us who were not about to let these people get away with it.
It was tense and strange for about two weeks. Tears, shouting, stomping out, plotting, endless explaining, fury, until finally we agreed on enough to go back into the courtroom. I would like to be as optimistic as dengre on this, but what I came away with is the feeling that no matter how well-intentioned people are, the fate of the country is in a pretty delicate balance. People can be talked into believing almost anything, and I saw that up close.
One of the jurors was swayed by the arguments of the pro se defendants, who were clearly certifiable. One of them could not figure out why we wanted to convict the Christians, because they were so nice and really meant well.
Really, this whole wonderful experiment that is the USA could go either way. I know what I want, but it’s not clear to me right now that we’ll be able to get past the current deliberate & relentless push toward stupidity.
Xenos
@MattR: Historically the gentlemen’s colleges had started as seminaries, and rhetoric was critical to preaching effectively. Someone mentioned that outright lies are unavoidable in politics and sex, to that I would add evangelism. Either way, the masses need to be effectively lied to, for their own good. The elites have the duty to stabilize the system, to make money off the rubes, to save the souls of their social inferiors, and to get laid.
chines
Thank you, Dennis.
I served as a juror 2 years ago. It was a fairly simple assault case that took a week of arguments. It was clear early on that the DA didn’t have much of a case and her witnesses were horrendous liars. The defendent was AA, charged with assault against 2 white boys. Pretty much all witnesses agreed the 2 white boys started the fight, that the defendent tried to walk away, and only when that failed did the defendent start hitting, where he did more damage than he suffered, which is presumably why HE was the one charged. The public defender, while boring as hell as a speaker, did really earn his pay poking holes in the DA’s narrative and showing that the witnesses down the block could in no way have witnessed the fight from their apartment as they claimed.
To me, it was harrowing–I’d go home and cry because I felt so sorry for the defendent. It seemed monstrously unfair that he defended himself against a couple of drunken jerk-offs and had been jailed and charged, etc. I really stressed that my fellow jurors would buy the DA’s UTTER CRAP about how the defendent had “no HONOR”. If it was that bad for me, just a juror, I cannot imagine what a nightmare it must be for a defendent in that situation.
It was such a relief to get into the jury room and find that the others felt as I did, and were so disgusted by the DA’s witnesses. In the end it was a positive experience because 1) the jurors took their citizenship duties seriously 2) the public defender did such a good job. unlike the horror stories about PD’s sleeping during trials, etc. 3) there were 3 cops who testified, and they only read from their written reports as obviously they couldn’t remember an assault that happened 9 months before. I found it comforting that the cops never seemed to side w/ either DA or Defense, they just testified to their limited exposure with the scene.
Sorry, teal deer, I know.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
i have only had one run at the jury box, it was while i was a unionized kicking dog some years ago. that meant, unlike many jurors, who are trying to get out of it, or hoping to get excluded, because i was looking at full pay for the duration, i was praying to be impaneled.(sad but true)
not a good time to know the defendants.
Xantar
Sometimes the jury choices of lawyers are even wackier than you would think. When I was working for the Delaware Superior Court, I was the clerk calling out names from the pool to sit in the box.
This particular case was about a boyfriend allegedly threatening his girlfriend and scratching her car. While he was in jail, she had written him some love letters. Boneheads, both of them, but this was the case that the poor new prosecutor was assigned to.
One of the jurors selected by the first random draw was Carole Loveless (not her real first name, but the last name is real and you’ll understand why in a second). The prosecutor declined to strike Ms. Loveless, and I later found out that this was basically because she figured someone named Loveless would take a dim view of a defendant accused of threatening harm on his girlfriend. Anyway, the defense attorney DID strike Ms. Loveless from the pool for pretty much the same reason. And then I looked down on randomized name sheet to call out the next juror: Abby Manlove.
MattR
@Xenos:
And the problem is the goddamn elites have abandoned the first item on that list.
Speaking of trials and juries, I am curious how the Barry Bonds perjury trial is going to turn out. I am pretty sure that Bonds knew what he was putting in his body, but I am not so sure that the government is going to be able to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt.
Frank
Well, my BS detector was pretty good. My overall real issue was the ability to stand up the BS that was detected. Homeland Security and a year in Baghdad gave me the conviction of that we won’t get fooled again. And part of the BS detectin is calling the person out when it happens instead of letting it go. Or figuring out you’ve been had an hour after the conversation…
Greenpoint Matt
Interesting and somewhat inspiring post. Thanks for sharing.
Joel
Great post DenG.
Redshift
@sfinny: I was in the jury pool for the Zacharias Moussaoui trial. I was still in after the first week of selection, but was let go in the second. It was a pretty intense experience, and though I didn’t get to be there for the actual jury work, everyone took the preliminaries very seriously. I was sorry I didn’t get picked; I would have loved to have been the person who refused to go along with a death sentence.
And I got a great answer for that party game question of “name something you have experienced that you think no one else here has”: I have been ranted at by an al-Qaeda member.
Paul in NC
I’m a trial lawyer. The hardest part of trial strategy is boiling a case down to its essence, keeping it simple. We are afraid to purposely omit tangential evidence for fear that the jury might find it important. So we end up asking the next irrelevant question, throwing in the whole kitchen sink, which appears, I guess, to be a form of obfuscation. It makes trials longer and more boring because you lose the compelling narrative. But it’s not necessarily blowing smoke (though it can be). On the other hand, I cannot tell you how many nights I’ve laid awake thinking “I should have…”
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re welcome Counselor. You may make the check out to…
@Allan:
She may have triple fucked him. The IRS finds out about this and it becomes a Trust Fund Recovery Penalty, which is one of the nastiest things the IRS can do. You don’t pay FICA taxes, you get slapped hardcore, and ANYONE who can sign a check for the corporation is liable. Revenue Officers live for these cases.
slag
@Paul in NC: Interesting; that’s contrary to my experience. In the one case I served on, I was shocked at the lack of actual evidence presented. It was a basic traffic accident suit, and the prosecution seemed to rely almost totally on the fact that the defendants were in their teens (the defense was so bad that I don’t even remember their case).
I remember sitting there, listening to the arguments, thinking that simple geometry would easily reconcile the two stories being offered up to us. So, I kept waiting for the diagrams to show up. Measurements of where the vehicles were found in the road, etc. Nothing. Not a thing. The most we got was a photo of the intersection in question. It was really lame. I don’t know if evidence rules prevented us from getting this info or what, but I (and a few of my fellow jurors) were deeply unsatisfied with the amount of evidence presented and the seeming reliance on our prejudices and sympathies.
Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)
Deleted duplicate. Move along, little reader.
Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)
Moderated?
Oh! I see what i did. Again:
Here are some things I have learned from the commentariat today:
1) There is a category beyond “unconstitutional” that includes “should be unconstitutional”
2) Some commenters believe that Cole and Greenwald are elected (appointed? inherited? won in a p0ker game? found in the city dump?) representatives.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel): It’s been an interesting week to be sure. I blame the moon.
Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)
@Yutsano: Not to be churlish. I always learn lots of good stuff too.
I think people just hear the phrase Super-Moon and crank the crazy up a couple of notches.
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel): I can handle crazy. It’s the people who are on the other end of my phone who have no good reason to be there that tend to get under my skin. And that was over half my calls today at work.
Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)
@Yutsano: You mean they were put through to you by mistake?
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel): No, they belonged in my department. But either their issues had been handled or their requests had already been denied to the point where they were just stalling. It sort of makes my job easier cause I don’t have to do much, but it seems like a big fat waste of my time.
Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)
@Yutsano: Ah. Gottcha.
In one of my jobs there is no such thing as being inconvenienced. In my janitorial capacity, your mess is my livelihood. If you suddenly stopped making a mess, how will my dogs eat?
However, if you never practice your guitar and think you’re going to destroy my ears with a bunch disconnected, unmusical of bullshit, after the first talking to, you’re outta there!
Yutsano
@Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel): I don’t get to play with innocents much. By the time they talk to me they’re either so overwhelmed they need a dose of extra gravity just to find up or they know they’re pretty much fucked up and hope for the easiest out possible. I’ve often told folks I’m literally their last chance.
Parallel 5ths (Irish Steel)
@Yutsano: You are Virgil to their Dante:
The two poets escape Hell by climbing down Satan’s ragged fur, passing through the centre of the earth (with a consequent change in the direction of gravity, causing Dante to at first think they are returning to Hell), and they emerge in the other hemisphere (described in the Purgatorio) just before dawn on Easter Sunday, beneath a sky studded with stars (Canto XXXIV).
gex
@Xenos: Hmm. Seems like those 19th Century college educated gentlemen knew better than to share rhetoric with the masses who would soon be gaining access to education and be legally allowed to compete with white men.
stuckinred
I’ve served on two juries involving serious crimes and both gave me faith in “the system”.
bob h
It’s sad to see the Maestro reduced to regurgitation of Frank Luntz talking points on the economy.
Joey Maloney
I’ve never been impaneled. Every time I’ve gotten close it’s been a drug case, and every time I’ve been asked if I would decide strictly according to the evidence, and every time I’ve answered honestly that I think drug prohibition is much worse for society than drug use and therefore I wouldn’t vote to convict anyone of a nonviolent drug crime under any circumstances.
Thanks for your time, you’re excused.
Quiddity
Re “Alan Greenspan on the radio”: Was that someplace where there is a podcast or transcript available? The link in the post (above) is to Krugman good put-down on Greenspan, but that was about a paper Sir Alan wrote. Anyone know more about this? Was Alan being interviewed? Or just sound bites. On right-wing radio, or NPR?
Hewer of Wood, Drawer of Water
@Annamal: What the? I’m sorry, but I need to know more about that
jon
I was once told to go home because I admitted that I didn’t think our drug laws were worth diddly squat. Another time I just didn’t fit someone’s profile of what a juror should be.
Then I finally got on a jury. It was a DUI case. The defendant was pulled over for a broken taillight just two blocks from a pizza and beer place, was driving fine, but had some drinks and admitted that to the officer. Of course there were field tests, and she failed them because, in the officer’s testimony, (paraphrasing) “She didn’t follow directives 3, 5, and 8, which counts as failure.” Yeah, she got her footing wrong in a dance she just learned. But was she nervous or anything? “Oh, heavens no!” said the prosecutor, “the defense offered no evidence that she was nervous.” This was said with a straight face, but I saw the joke and laughed out loud.
I’d like to think the arrogant fucker learned something that day, but based on the way the other jurors went about things I’m sure such bullshit works a lot of the time. They all had hangdog faces at the idea that the judge said we had to convict her based on the law. Never mind the facts or anything, these people wanted to follow the instructions rather than make decisions. So I led them to my decisions. The fact that the machines used to test BAC can’t be examined because the manufacturer refuses to release the software for examination except under absurd conditions made us skeptical, the fact that she blew a .09 when a .08 was the limit and there’s lots of ways the machine has a margin of error, and the fact that the defendant will probably be paying off the defense attorney and the expert witness for years to come made us able to acquit the defendant.
We had qualms about her drinking, knowing full well that she had had at least a few, but in the end we just decided she had been punished enough and probably wouldn’t do it again. Are we sure? No. But I told the other jurors they could blame me if they wanted to feel better. They liked that idea.
I’ve been told that I didn’t do my job, didn’t do my duty, and didn’t serve as I should have. I say bullshit to that. I’ve even been told that I am responsible if anyone anywhere is ever hit or injured by a drunk driver, as I’m now part of the problem, apparently. But I didn’t see enough to convict, so fuck those people. Is drunk driving serious? Yes, but one conviction to make a point wouldn’t be justice if it’s done on somebody’s life. If making a stand involves stepping on someone, I’ll stay seated, thankyouverymuch.
Ed
I wish my jury duty experience had been more positive. I was on a jury in the Bronx in the shadow of Yankee Stadium for a murder trial that was taken over by a rogue juror. While most of us took the matter seriously, a couple of the jurors acted as if the whole exercise was just a ridiculous inconvenience. At one point one juror interrupted the trial to go to the bathroom and then retired to the jury room to hang out. After about 30 minutes someone was sent to find her. She thought we could carry on the trial without her. Then the rogue juror took the stage and held out for no logical reason. A lot of shouting, mostly from me, and long periods of sitting in the jury room doing nothing, waiting for our meals. The judge kept telling us to work things out. And we just sat there. After four days of “deliberations,” our rogue juror offered a deal. The defendant, who even the rogue juror said was guilty, was to be convicted on only one of the lesser charges. Trespassing. And that’s how the ugly, surreal experience finally came to an end.
Skepticat
I’ve served on only one jury, in a trial for armed assault. It was a fascinating yet frustrating experience. Jurors may take no notes, and only when we were about to go to deliberations after several days of testimony were we told exactly how the law applied. (Anyone involved in the assault–this fellow drove the car to and from the scene–was guilty even if s/he did not do any assaulting.) We would have been able to judge testimony much more intelligently had we known this from the beginning. (Perhaps we should have known, but didn’t.) It was a case of “Oh, that’s what he meant when he said whatever.” There were two counts, and after two days we found him guilty on one and not guilty on the other.
The two most interesting people were the defense lawyer, who obviously had seen way too much TV and employed nothing but drama and histrionics, and one juror who insisted that the man would not have been arrested if he were not guilty.
It’s fairly unnerving to walk back into the jury box in a small courtroom close to the defendant and know you are responsible for a verdict sending him to prison for quite a while. It’s much worse when you’re not sure that you knew enough to make a really good decision.
I would like to serve on a jury again, as I feel that I’d be more aware of how the process worked and what deserves attention.
joe from Lowell
…and then this one woman started calling everyone “cudlips.”
Trinity
Well written and thoughtful post.
Thank you.
WereBear
Some people live their lives completely and utterly screwed up; but that’s okay with them, because their lives are screwed up because they never have to take responsibility for anything they do.
And they will take that bargain.
Awesome post. “We live among unreliable narrators!” My new catch-phrase.
Dennis G.
@Paul in NC: In my area (Baltimore/DC) we get C-Span Radio over the airways and they were broadcasting him giving a talk at a wingnut think tank.
jon
@WereBear: I was actually frightened that I had the ability to convince other people to come to my conclusion. I was glad I used it to show a little faith in and compassion for the defendant rather than to condemn her for something she was already feeling terrible about. I don’t like using power over others, which is why I didn’t want to have power over this defendant, and maybe that made me a poor juror. Or maybe it made me a good one. I’ll never really know, but I do know I am able to sleep comfortably.
Bill H.
I’m glad your jury experience was more positive than mine. Our prosecutor did not come even close to proving his case, we all agreed on that, but it involved transporting marijuana so half the jury wanted to convict to “prove a point.” One guy knew the guy was guilty, even though the prosecutor didn’t manage to prove it, because the guy was in a tavern before lunch time. That proved that he was an alcoholic, which somehow proved that he was knowingly transporting pot. We wound up with a hung jury.
Korea Beat
It’s interesting to read everyone’s experiences of serving as jurors. I was a “prosecutor” in a mock trial for a law school class last semester. Very similar to Dennis G.’s case – a murder with mainly circumstantial evidence. We wound up with a hung jury mainly because the jury never thought we gave them a clear enough idea of what happened. I think that when one side doesn’t present its case in a clear enough fashion, it’s easy to view that as bullshitting or overselling. Not saying that accounts for the bad experiences mentioned here, just food for thought.
Hillary Rettig
I was on an intense trial last year, and my experience was similarly positive. The jurors all seemed to to take the mission seriously. Many people contributed perspective from different sources – some, like I, contributed a relevant parenting perspective; others a relevant kid perspective. I felt justice was done.
What was less impressive was some of the cumbersome court apparatus. The judge read us long long streams of directions and would give us a cassette tape (!) of them to refer to when we had questions. Why could they not just print them all out for us – since he obviously had to write them out (and probably cut and paste them) ahead of time, anyway.
I also do feel way smarter because of the Web – much better informed and more of a critical thinker.
Hillary Rettig
oh – forgot! the other thing that was amusing was that, because we voted “not guilty,” later in the comments section of the Boston Herald (Wingnut paper), there were all these supremely ignorant yet self-assured comments about how we jurors must have been unemployed deadbeat welfare recipients ourselves to come up with that vote. I don’t know the vocations of every single juror, but we were a very diverse group, and most were professionals or students.
Redshift
@jon: I was on a grand jury once (my first jury duty.) We had basic evidence presented for a bunch of cases and decided whether it was enough to go to trial. One case that stuck in my mind was an arrest for “possession of burglary tools.” A vending machine had been broken into, and a guy was found in the vicinity with a screwdriver. Apparently that qualifies as “possession of burglary tools,” but they couldn’t charge him with actually doing anything because there was no further evidence. He may well have done the break-in, but no way were we going to send that to trial.
Another thing I learned that day is that in Virginia, it is a misdemeanor to threaten to kill someone, but a felony to threaten to burn their house down. I don’t know if that’s because of how likely they are to carry it out, or if it just indicates the priority order in which the modern version of Mr. Jefferson’s Virginia puts “life, liberty, and property.”
Rorgg
“pulled the trigger” … wait, does this matter?
I’ve been called for jury duty twice in my life, and both times was empaneled on a murder case, once in California and once in Illinois. In both cases, the judge’s instructions were very clear: it didn’t matter if the person in question was the one who “pulled the trigger,” but if they were an active, willing participant in the action, that was sufficient for a finding of guilty on murder.
In fact, in the first case, it was somewhat murky who actually delivered the actual killing blow, but as all 3 defendants were clearly there and participatory from the evidence, we found them all guilty. I remember one of the jurors being reluctant to vote guilt based on that, and a couple others somewhat uncomfortable with it, but the consensus was that the instruction was very clear, and there was no cause to hold out on a guilty verdict for that reason.
ErikaF
Great Post. Congrats for performing your civic duty – it’s not fun, generally thankless, but vital for our society.
Generally I’ve been dropped out from the jury pool, but the first case I actually was on the jury was interesting. It was for committing the defendent to a mental hospital for evaluation and treatment for 30 days. Apparently there was some assault involved, but we were supposed to determine if the committal was appropriate. The lawyer told us that it was pretty much a done deal, but they needed us to agree to it. This was the first time on a jury for all of us, so we decided to use the experience wisely, and we asked to see any statements and listen to the defendent. The prosecutor was not joking, btw – the committal was definitely appropriate in this case. Even still, I had to refute a lot of misconceptions about what committing someone who broke the law actually means (they don’t go scot free – they are treated until they are judged competent to stand trial). It was an educational experience for all of us, and we were glad that we insisted on treating it as a real jury case rather than rubber-stamping it. The lawyer said that while we did take up some time, he was glad that we took the reponsibility that seriously for this case.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
I’d like to thank you again, Dennis, for both your conscientious service and your thoughtful post about it. You make some very good points. Also, I’d like to thank all the posters who’ve been jurors. It’s easy to think it’s a hassle, and harder to imagine that any of us might one day wish to have thoughtful, intelligent people decide something about our lives in court. So I’m heartened by how seriously you all took it.
And I’ll like also to denounce Stalin, the broccoli mandate, and Brussels sprouts as well (because they are the spawn of Satan), so that my daily denunciation will be complete.
brantl
The problem isn’t that they are unrealiable narrators. The problem hs that they are supposed to be referees (telling the news, while exhibiting the play-by-play) and they’ve turned into ininterested narrators, who don’t fact check,which is what they are paid for. (Hint: dishonest, unverified or non-investigative news is called ‘gossip’.)
Tim I
I had a very similar experience about 10 years ago. The charges were much less severe, assault and battery, but we had the same problem. It was a bar fight between disreputable characters and almost all the evidence came from witnesses who were all lying. The defendants friends lied in his favor, the friends of the victim lied on his behalf.
We voted to convict, but it was hard. We knew that the guy was guilty, but he faced a lot of jail time. we also knew that the ‘victim’ was equally culpable – he was facing pretty much the same charges.
It made no sense that these knuckleheads hadn’t agreed to mutually drop the charges prior to trial, but we were sworn to provide a just verdict and I think we did, though it troubled me for some time after.
Wolfdaughter
I have served on 4 juries, 2 civil and 2 criminal. BTW, Mike E, not all criminal trials involve murder. The 2 I sat on, one involved stealing and the other involved drug dealing. Like you, I am very opposed to the death penalty and would probably not make it past voir dire in a murder trial.
The 2 civil cases both involved car accidents.
I was impressed by the dedication and professionalism of all 4 juries, except for one woman. The first jury I sat on was about a car accident. The driver was (Mexican) American. During deliberations, I was reiterating a piece of his testimony concerning his experience with driving conditions. This woman looked at me and said, “Do you really believe him?” And based upon some other things she said, she was implying that because he was of Mexican ethnicity, his testimony was unreliable.
I just gave her the gimlet eye and replied, “Yes”. His testimony was consistent with other things he and other participants said. I found her question shocking and insulting, and I’m pretty sure it showed on my face.
In Arizona we are allowed and encouraged to take notes during a trial. Also, since some years back, at least in Pima County, the rules allow jurors to write questions down and give them to the bailiff, realtime, during testimony, and if the judge and attorneys agree, the question will be asked of the witness. This trial involved a car accident and the degree to which the plaintiffs were injured.
As usual, the attorneys were all dancing around, not asking significant questions, to put the best face on their side of the trial. I’m a retired medical librarian, so pretty soon I got real impatient with the fact that the relevant questions weren’t being asked. So I started writing down questions. The other jurors were extremely impressed with my questions, and the answers really helped us come to a verdict. I could tell that the attorneys weren’t very happy with my questions.
I should have been kicked off the jury, because we were asked during voir dire if we had medical experience. I stuck my paw up and said yes, I’m a medical librarian, and I do lit searches for physicians and other health professions, but the judge and the attorneys blew my answer off. Hah!
During every trial, the lawyers threw in a lot of irrelevancies, and during one trial the defense attorney was very aggressive. Some jurors are impressed by this kind of behavior, but on all 4 of my trials, there were enough of us who saw through the bullshit right away, who could convince the others to ignore the irrelevancies. As an experienced juror, I beg of you attorneys, just the facts, ma’am (or sir)! Cut the crap. Trials take up enough time without it.
rumpple
Good for you.
Sounds like what you were exposed to was, more than anything else, shitty lawyering. If the jury/judge believes you, then you will win. That simple. That’s essential in any case that goes to trial, because most times they’re pled out, and there are facts in dispute that create reasonable doubt. (Note-telling your client’s story in an honest and concise way is not easy. We have a joke round the office that says “Yes judge. If I had more time, I’d have been briefer.”)
It’s amazing how few people develop their bullshit detector. Very useful skill to have.
gex
@Redshift: I wonder if that may be related to people’s tendencies to start fires in black people’s yards using two pieces of wood in a “t” like shape.
Anniecat45
@Tim I:
“It made no sense that these knuckleheads hadn’t agreed to mutually drop the charges prior to trial” —
if this was a criminal trial the charges can ONLY be dropped by the prosecutor. The accused can agree to a plea bargain, which may include some of the charges being dropped. And the crime victim becomes a witness for the prosecution, but s/he cannot drop the charges. And if a witness refuses to testify they can face trouble of their own for that.
Batocchio
This was pretty much my experience, too. I found some training in philosophy and logic, both as a student and as teacher, was useful for identifying poor and fallacious arguments. Working with teenagers, addicts and a few chronic liars will also help tune that bullshit detector. (I’m not slamming all teenagers here, because many are great, and all deserve a chance, but plenty tend to exaggerate and bullshit. Especially if you know someone’s got a bad track record, taking their account at face value is folly.) Political blogging definitely exposes one to many more liars, scoundrels, hacks and crazy people, and can hone that bullshit detector further, but the basic principles remain the same. (I’ll add that fiction is full of unreliable narrators, and very helpful in this respect, too.)
In a case I heard as a juror, one lawyer consistently misstated a key fact. Luckily the opposing lawyers challenged it every time. But that tactic was a red flag. If his case depended on a lie, it didn’t speak well for it, or him. It raised the issue of overall credibility. The same principle applied to the Bushies on war, and does for almost every conservative think tank argument, and certainly almost every Koch-funded glibertarian jihad – if they can’t make the case honestly, almost unfailingly that means they don’t have a good case. After you’ve identified someone as a bullshitter, it’s folly to take anything at face value. That’s a basic principle most adults know and most kids learn, but David Broder was too gutless, dishonest, delusionally gullible or lazy to follow it. “Yes, Newt Gingrich is a lying, self-serving scumbag, and he’s grossly misstated the facts here, but both sides have a point.” The Broder/David Brooks method is to start with the conclusion, and ignore all the evidence (or at least any honest, full, critical assessment of it.)
JR in WV
Hi:
I’ve served on several juries, both criminal and civil, over the years. My first experience was a murder trial. The defendant was Daniel, elderly, hard-working, cancer patient, never missed a day of work at the (Rail) Car Foundry until his kidney diagnosis. Names changed to protect ME!
The victim was the bully of the neighborhood. A dozen witnesses were used to ask “Do you know anything about Billy?” to elicit the answer “Only to stay away from him, he was dangerous!” He was on parole from a murder conviction, having served the minimum 15 years for life with mercy that is W. Va.’s second most severe verdict in a capital case.
As such he wasn’t allowed to have a firearm, and the story everyone told was that he came into the trailer where Donald and an acquaintance were drinking Falls City, dropped the new 12-pack, pulled out a .38 revolver and fired away. We were shown the bullet holes.
He had also threatened to kill Daniel many times around town, testimony showed, since Daniel’s testimony (and Daniel’s kids!) helped to send him up for murder for hire.
Billy was shot twice with Daniel’s wife’s pocket-book gun, a little .380 automatic. One round hit his arm and chest, and the other hit the top of his head. The medical examiner said either wound could have been fatal.
The prosecution claimed that the second shot, the head wound, was a coupe ‘d grace shot, to be sure Daniel wouldn’t have to worry about Billy showing up late one night after getting out of the hospital/jail/prison.
People on the jury ranged from hi-tech workers to highway asphalt spreader, teachers, hospital social workers, highways accounting clerk, etc. Everyone worked hard to pay attention, and when someone started to say something about the case, someone would interrupt to say, “Not yet! We can’t talk about it til the end!” and they would stop in mid-sentence.
The only misdemeanor was that folks would slide into the bathroom, which had an air extractor like a steel mill, and smoke a cigarette, which no one blamed them for. It was stressful, every day. And we never knew what they were talking about when we were sent back to the jury room.
It took 2 weeks and the judge spent all morning instructing us. First thing, he told us, you elect a foreman. My lucky day. Oct 31, too!
Most of the jury seemed to feel Billy needed put down, much as a rabid dog, and was confused about why Donald was in trouble. In the end, we decided that even though there was some doubt about the details, Billy was there in the trailer, after threatening to kill Donald.
Technically, in WV, if you have good reason to believe someone intends to kill you, there is a self-defense claim you can make. For example, if someone was known to be saying all around town that he was going to kill you, and he was on parole for murder, you could be supposed to believe that he meant to kill you, if he came into the room.
We didn’t have the option on the verdict form to find Donald guilty of anything but first degree murder.
So that was our verdict, not guilty of first degree murder.
Note that this isn’t a verdict of innocent. No jury ever finds a defendant innocent in America, that’s not how it works. Not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We had many doubts, but after a couple of hours of paperwork, none of them involved a guilty verdict.
I was released, with the rest of the jurors, with the judge’s thanks. Late on the evening of Oct. 31! Worst Hallowe’en ever, but really scary AND creepy!
Then 6 weeks later I got a call from the Clerk, who asked me to volunteer to be in a jury pool again. There’s a lot of people in my county, but not all of them are eligible to be in a jury pool. Usually the clerk recognizes the felons, and deleted their names to spare then the embarrassment of telling the judge they aren’t eligible for the $40/day salary.
So I volunteer, in spite of having been taught NEVER volunteer while in the military. Sure enough, my number popped out of the little cage!! Dam!
Voir dire – unlike the first trial, which had all jurors questioned together in the box, raise your hand if the answer isn’t no – we got questioned in the Judge’s chambers, individually!
Turns out the event was in my neighborhood, and I had met the victim, and his brother, when I had trouble with a horse years ago. They knew a lot about horses, and wanted to offer me advice, like lots of neighbors. None of it did any good, Pet was 28, which is really old for horses, it turns out.
Anyway. the defendent was the victim’s wife, who, theoretically, had confessed on video. Very theoretically, it turned out much later.
I said I hadn’t heard anything that I remembered about the events (they were up the other hollow from mine, after all) and certainly had no ideas about what had happened from anyone who was in a position to know anything personally.
No predispositions at all. Still, I was nearly shocked when they didn’t strike me. After all, I was foreman on the last jury who acquitted the defendant, I felt sure the prosecutor would want me off there fast. What gives?
Many psychologists, ballistics experts, friends and relatives, neighbors, police, EMTs, hospital staff, all testify for 2 weeks.
The gun was a hunting pistol, single shot, had to be cocked before it could fire. The bullet itself was out in the woods, never recovered. Charley was shot under his left arm right through the heart, through the bottom of the holster. Pieces of holster were all over his side.
Visitors had been passing the gun around earlier in the evening, aiming it, cocking it (empty, mostly) and aiming and shooting at the upper living room walls. Did I mention that everyone involved was into hunting and shooting? Everyone but the only son, anyway. One visitor was teaching Charlie taxidermy.
One question asked of the prosecution’s ballistics expert, “Have you been in lots of police department ready rooms?” Yes. “Have you ever been in a police ready room that didn’t have bullet holes from unintentional discharges?” No…
I actually worked with a person who’s partner, experienced police officer, shot them in the leg in their kitchen with an “empty” gun. So I know guns go off by accident, even guns everyone is sure are unloaded. Once a friend took me to a neighbor’s house, who had a new shotgun AND a new baby.
We admired the new baby, and then started passing the new shotgun around, aiming it high on the walls and holding it against our shoulders. When it came to me, I slipped the chamber open, as I was taught by my Grandma AND the range officer in boot camp.
Sure enough, that 12 gauge shotgun was fully loaded and chambered, ready to kill squirrels, birds, or baby upstairs in the nursery. Everyone was shocked, horrified, scared. No harm done, but it was a lesson I hope none of us ever forgot!
The instructions lasted all day this time, December 27th. Not a happy holiday time for any of us. I didn’t let them elect me foreman again, I asked them to please not vote for me this time, and they didn’t. I did say I would feel free to participate and advise, which I did.
We didn’t even start until dark. After a couple of hours I asked the Deputy outside our jury room door if he could ask the judge for sandwiches or something. Later on he brought us Gino’s leftovers, which tasted pretty good by then.
We were until about 11 pm acquitting the defendant, after I pointed out that we all saw all the same evidence, and didn’t agree at all, which to me was a sign of reasonable doubt, as we were all reasonable people, and we were divided. After hours we were still divided.
Worked hard, took it very seriously. The one holdout had been on a jury once, acquitted a defendant, who had gone right out and committed the same crime, again. He decided fool me once, shame on you, I’ll never acquit anyone again.
He was a hard sell, but his cousin told him we’d be back again in the morning to start the discussion again if he stuck to his position, and after another hour he gave it up, and said it was all our fault if it turned out we had made him turn a murderer loose.
So I got home for birthday cake about 11:45 that night.
Jury duty is very serious, and my experience made me respect jury verdicts, even when they look odd from a distance. After all, no one but the jury experiences a trial the way the judge decides it should be conducted, no one.