Glad that's over

We reached a verdict and it's a relief, now back to the grind, call up my lawyer tomorrow.

This has been my fourth call to jury duty. I'd say I always took it more seriously than average, but my last two years in the justice system have added to my concern.

I have found that many people look for "reasonable doubt" and while there is a presumption of innocence, I've always had some concern for the victim. I've also found people saying they could decide if they had this or that, which of course is against the judicial instructions. I'm not bashful in calling another juror on this, in fact, I've even called in a judge to re-instruct the jury if I see people blatantly ignoring the instructions.

So if you take things seriously, jury duty can be a significant responsibility. But if you also know how flawed the system is, it can be downright disconcerting.

So what do I get? A poorly prosecuted, very serious, multi-felony case. The most important witnesses, alleged victim and defendant, were both clearly lying. I wanted to find the detective and prosecutor guilty. Our county court is the busiest in the entire state, our judge was handling over 500 pending cases. There are hundreds on staff in the prosecutors office.

The defendant was poor, naive, and likely didn't hire his lawyer. He lucked out, he had a very good lawyer. I wonder how things would have turned out if that had not have been the case.

It was admitted by both sides that some of the elements of the crime had occurred. So now we're on fine technicalities, was the alleged victim a party to it or not.

The jury's first response, poor prosecution, not proven 100%. Whoa nelly, that is not reasonable doubt. I lobby the jurors, we spent three days in trial, let's not be hasty. I remember a trial that let someone off for poor prosecution, we found out shortly after the trial about evidence that was not admitted, a guilty guy walked. Let's be sure.

Here's the most crucial item required to convict, let's review each witness and each exhibit to see what it says. Witnesses were problematic, but the exhibits were revealing. A very reliable exhibit contradicted the prosecutor. That's rather disturbing. Then we found that the defendant had never been arrested for this crime. The alleged victim made a complaint, it was sent to a grand jury and he was indicted.

It's hard to summarize the week here, but in the end, in an effort to protect a potential victim, a defendant was on trial for multiple felonies.

Deja vu, in an effort to protect my son, unproven allegations are used to restrict his visitation with me.

Innocent until proven guilty, well that's the theory, but then humans, and reality get in the way.

I'm relieved, I'm satisfied, we found him not guilty, not from emotion, not from poor prosecution, not out of timidness to declare a guilty verdict, but by full and careful review of all the evidence, in context.

Anything less would be irresponsible and I will never sign a jury verdict form or a divorce decree without being responsible.

That's just me. That's my principle.

That's what separates me
from the rest of the animal kingdom.