I had jury duty today and dreaded it.\u00a0 It was terribly inconvenient.\u00a0 There were better things to do with my time.\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 If I was an innocent defendant, with the misfortune to be charged with something I did not do; I would want a reasonable, open-minded person on the jury.\u00a0 Preferably twelve of them.<\/p>\n
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Am I a reasonable and open minded person?\u00a0 Hope so; but maybe not.\u00a0 For 22 years I was an FBI Agent.\u00a0 I\u2019ve conducted more investigations than I can estimate.\u00a0 I\u2019m very cynical and more skeptical.\u00a0 Keeping an open mind is of paramount importance.\u00a0 A lot of subjects who initially appear to be guilty are, in fact, not.\u00a0 I have seen many who appeared to be innocent, insisted they were innocent; but later confessed when confronted with damning evidence.\u00a0 First impressions of people are usually wrong.<\/p>\n
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Witnesses lie and withhold exculpatory information.\u00a0 Often they only tell part of the story.\u00a0 \u00a0 Witnesses often are afraid for their lives if they talk to law enforcement.\u00a0 Rightfully so, despite all assurances, law enforcement cannot always protect witnesses.<\/p>\n
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False complaints are common.\u00a0 Complainants only tell you enough of the story to lead to to the conclusion they want.<\/p>\n
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Any investigator worth their salt spends a lot of time and energy trying to \u201cpunch holes\u201d in their investigation.\u00a0 It is an important part of the process that is sometimes minimized in the face of political or public pressure to solve a case.<\/p>\n
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Not all \u201cgood\u201d cases are prosecuted.\u00a0 Not all that are prosecuted are convicted.\u00a0 Not all requests for warrants are approved.\u00a0 That is as it should be.\u00a0 Sometimes there is shoddy investigation, or malicious prosecution.<\/p>\n
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Some guilty subjects are not prosecuted, or released on appeal, because the investigation or prosecution is conducted outside the law.<\/p>\n
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There are a lot of people who have a hard time distinguishing between fact and opinion.\u00a0 There are many more people who are willing to jump to conclusions with very thin facts.\u00a0 Some of them are investigators.\u00a0 What is more frightening is some are prosecutors.<\/p>\n
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I vividly remember an Assistant U.S. Attorney who would decline prosecution of complex felonies. \u00a0 He was eager to prosecute a group of local teenagers.\u00a0 They inadvertently trespassed on a military reservation, where they set off fireworks, with absolutely no harm done. \u00a0 The only reason the kids were arrested was that the guard who caught them was off his post meeting a girlfriend in the woods near town. \u00a0 The AUSA liked it because it was a \u201cslam dunk\u201d case that meant very little work and boosted his accomplishments for the year.\u00a0 In my opinion it did not serve justice.<\/p>\n
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There is an incredible amount of \u201cfact\u201d published in newspapers that is half-truth.\u00a0 How often have you seen conjecture blended with thin facts to sway opinion in the media?\u00a0 We have all seen newspapers ruin the reputation of innocents.\u00a0 Have you ever seen a front page retraction?\u00a0 In the press, as in politics,\u00a0 perception is more important than reality.\u00a0 We should never forget that a news media\u2019s first mission is to sell itself, not tell the truth.<\/p>\n
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When there is a particularly heinous crime and the shock is still fresh; the range and depth of obviously prejudicial opinion is astounding.\u00a0 When there is an arrest, the concept of innocence until proven guilty is rarely heard.\u00a0 It is easy to see how lynch mobs happen.\u00a0 Sometimes the first person arrested in a high profile crime is not the guilty party.<\/p>\n
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Bureaucracies are slow, cumbersome, and subject to political influence.\u00a0 They have limited resources and therefore take short-cuts.\u00a0 The justice system is one of our biggest bureaucracies.<\/p>\n
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Our system is far from perfect.\u00a0 There is one element of our system that exists for the sole purpose of mitigating the faults I have mentioned.\u00a0 It is the jury.\u00a0 You never know what a jury is going to do.<\/p>\n
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There are a lot of countries in the world whose citizens ache for a jury system like ours.<\/p>\n
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The jury alone decides the truth of the testimony and the innocence or guilt of the defendant.\u00a0 Sometimes the jury \u201cruns away\u201d and nullifies the law.\u00a0 Sometimes they decide the son-of-a-bitch needed killing and the citizen is acquitted despite the law.\u00a0 The only element of our system that holds in check law enforcement, prosecution, or the judge; is the jury.\u00a0 The jury\u2019s decision, if unanimous, is final.\u00a0 The case can be appealed, but not on the basis of the jury\u2019s decision.\u00a0 An appeal has to be based on a flaw in the application of the law or rules of procedure.\u00a0 A jury’s finding of \u201cnot guilty\u201d cannot be appealed.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Today, when I looked out on the one hundred or so prospective jurors in the pool, I was actually reassured.\u00a0 Most of them looked like they could tie their shoes.\u00a0 A couple\u00a0 dressed and behaved so as to be disqualified quickly.\u00a0 Most of them were real people who were capable of deciding the fate of their peers.\u00a0 All of them had other things they would rather be doing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As luck would have it, we were all dismissed by 10:00 a.m.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
If I had been selected, I hope I would have measured up to the job!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had jury duty today and dreaded it.\u00a0 It was terribly inconvenient.\u00a0 There were better things to do with my time.\u00a0 Really?\u00a0 If I was an innocent defendant, with the misfortune to be charged with something I did not do; I would want a reasonable, open-minded person on the jury.\u00a0 Preferably twelve of them. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions\/140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}