I like what wcknight suggested.
I’ve been on civic and criminal juries, and I’ll tell you the quality of fellow jurors varies widely. I had quite an annoying time with a particular gang-related drive by shooting case. You absolutely wouldn’t believe the stupidity in the jury room. At least one man of the other 11 listened for actual facts; the other 10 went on cliches, emotional flocking, and pretty much ignored the facts. Racism was obvious and rampant in two if the 12 white jurors. After arguing with me 11-1 on what one particular hostile (opposign gang member who skipped out on subpeona and came in the next day to testify in an orange jump suit) witness actually did or didn’t say, we had a readback which clearly made my point. One of the 11 was perceptive enough to realize there was at least something to discuss.
I might have voted to convict if the others had engaged me in a reasonable discussion, but they wouldn’t do it. I said, “we are supposed to find reasonable doubt. I’m not saying he didn’t do it, but there is a gap in the story, bringing doubt. If you can convince me it is unreasonable, then I’ll vote with you. I just want to see how the rest of you are getting by the fact that we never found a gun and only circumstantial evidence placed the defendent at the scene.” There response was beyond stupidity of anything I could make up. They said, “oh, we respect you. We would not say you are unreasonable.” Great. A bunch of cloning wussies. So I said, “if you don’t think the doubt is unreasonable then you should change your vote to not guilty.” Of course, there’s the old man, “he’s guilty all right; I’m not going to change my vote, so let’s get out of here.” He led the group, and we had hung jury 10-2.
We did agree in the first five minutes of deliberation with no discussion to convict on another charge of firearm possession by an ex-felon. He admitted to it when he spoke to police without a lawyer and they tricked him by bluffing him by threatening to run a test they knew they could not run. Idiot. He probably did the shooting.
I tell you all this to demonstrate how much a clear head is needed in the jury room.
In terms of whether it is wrong to convict, I finally decided that it is a civic duty, and there is nothing spiritually to keep me from it. I am not condemning or even finding them spiritually guilty or evil. I am simply obeying the law to take the evidence presented, and match them against the instructions to the jury, and make my best guess. Convicting a person in a court of law, IMO, does not constitute “judgment” for purposes of having a hard heart. I think the biggest risk of “judging” is to the person doing the judging. Therefore, I don’t feel I have done the defendant a disservice in any way by clearly examining the facts of his case. I felt bad about the retrial and all they would probably have to have, but heck I had nothing else to do and since the others refused to have meaningful discussion I had to stick with the presumption of innocence. Same as that other guy who finally voted with me. What’s too bad for the other 10, is if they didn’t act like dishbags for 20 minutes so we could have meaningful discussion we probably could have convicted him 12 out of 12. I suspected the suspect actually did the shooting, but I could not convict in clear conscious without doing so according to the directions we were given to follow.
Another jury I was on, a civil trial against a truck driver who caused an accident which killed an off duty trooper and decapitated his girlfriend, lasted almost four weeks. In that one, we really liked the driver and wished we didn’t have to find him responsible, (plus the plantiff attorney was extraordinarily slimy) but their case was just too good and we had to decide in favor of the plaintiffs and against two of the three defendents. In that trial, a diverse group of 12 agonized for several days over minutia, then finally came together with the 10 of 12 votes we needed. At the end we were all impressed with how well young and old alike worked together to find a difficult verdict.
Keep in mind that the jury system is totally legit as far as the CCC is concerned, and the Church acknowledges that the government has a duty to do this sort of work. That does not conflict with Church teachings. Again, I think the difference is that we can find the person guilty beyond reasonable doubt based on the evidence presented, without condemning the defendant in our hearts. Caution: Note that lawyers count on jurors not being this rational; they try to get us to hate the defendant rather than focus on the evidence, all the while claiming it Isn’t About Our Personal Views about the defendant.
Reference: the movie “Twelve Angry Men.”
Alan
I suspect I would have been relieved of obligation.
