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Politics : The Left Wing Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: thames_sider who wrote (4769)	5/9/2001 12:06:19 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6089

I'll deal with the easy part, first. What, please, is/was X's chicken? Dare I even ask?? I'm sorry, that was from the Boxing Ring. Probably not worth mentioning the first time and certainly not again. Message 15775589 and a majority of the jury were for conviction, that must have been an unpleasant atmosphere - and, I'd wager, quite hard to vote against... I can't tell you what a difficult experience that was, although it was indeed fascinating. There were lots of complicating factors. The charges were prostitution and sodomy, a misdemeanor and a felony, respectively. The maximum sentence was six years. In my state, the jury not only decides the verdict, it decides the sentence. The sentence part is much more difficult and where you run into conflicts of values within the jury. First of all, there were four of five men who were excused from the jury because they said they were unable to convict anyone of it, period. (I gave a couple of them hell for it afterwards.) That caused a real problem because then the jury was tilted toward those who where aghast and wanted to throw the book at her. There were only three of us who were willing to convict but thought a slap on the wrist or thereabouts was the appropriate penalty. The defendant had already been in jail at least six months when the trial took place. When I saw what the situation was, I gave a lot of thought to hanging the jury, so offended was I by what was going to result. But the acts were a crime. The defendant was clearly guilty. Jury nullification at that time was not in common parlance. I guess everyone around here knows me well enough to know that, in the final analysis, I just thought it was wrong of me to impose my values on the rest of the group so I voted guilty, which she was. But my constant conflict between respect for the points of view of others and standing up for one's beliefs continues to occupy me and this decision continues to haunt me. Had I made a scene, they would just have retried her, convicted her, and probably given her six years. At least I was able to get the sentence down. That was my rationale, anyway. Was it simply homophobia? Or was it a pretext for some other crime where a conviction wouldn't have been possible? If there was any homophobia involved, it wasn't apparent to me although the sexual contact was between two women. I live in a law-and-order, no-nonsense county bordering the big, bad city. The prosecution was intended to make a point to those engaged in a wave of prostitution and pornography that they should take their business elsewhere. The crime resulted from a sting operation where two detectives posed as photographers looking for models. The defendant was one of the models. The woman was obviously a dupe. She was the stereotype of an inbred hillbilly with scraggly hair and bad teeth who looked a good fifteen years older than she was. From her testimony, I'd judge her IQ to be considerably below normal. She didn't have a clue what was going on. The kicker in this case, and what so inflamed many on the jury, was that her sex partner was her 18 year old daughter, a savvy kid who testified against her. It was a very difficult case, like I said. For those of you who have heard me whining about my current tour of jury duty, this case, my very first case out of six or seven now, is why I am so reluctant to serve. Karen P.S. Another interesting feature of local law is that, not only does the defendant have a right to a jury trial, the state has a right to one over the objections of the defendant, and the judge has a right to order one over the objections of both of them. I just found that out during my most recent jury orientation.