jury duty cases

I had an incredible streak of 21 years of never getting called for jury duty, from age 18 til age 39. That streak finally ended last year. I spent half a day in the courthouse, never got selected, and was not called back all week. Nothing since.

 

Was that in League City? I know a lot of similar problems happened to some homeowners in League City.

 

While living in LA, I was on two juries...one a medical malpractice lawsuit and the other one a criminal trial for assault with a deadly weapon.

While living in Houston, I have been on one jury...a case where a city contractor was caught driving a garbage truck he owned without the proper permits. We convicted him, but since he was a working guy, we knocked the fine down from $250 to $25. The contractor was thankful, since it looked to us like he would have a very difficult time scraping together $25, let alone $250. The prosecutor was more than a little pissed.

 

Italian man calls random phone booth for sex with Black man. They get in the car drive to black man's house so black man can change clothes. Black man returns to vehicle with a gun and carjacks the italian man. Strangely, Black man gives Italian ma a ride to a phone. Italian man calls and then goes to police. Police call Italian man's cell phone because he left it in the car.

Black man stupidly answers call from police. Police fake distressed white woman and black man agrees to pick her up (so he can rob her too.) Police on their way to rendez vous with black man and decides to gas up. They see the black man and his friends gasing up the stolen vehicle at their gas station. At the exact same time the Italian friend is driving home with his buddy and sees the vehicle at the gas station. All three intersect at the gas station.

The black man gets in the vehicle and drives four blocks. Itlaian man and police in pursuit. Ditches the car. Foot chase over five blocks through backyards. Fence junping, wall climbing, and chaos. Black man looses Police. Thirty minutes later women looks out her window to see a black man cowering on her back door step. She call's 911. Police arrive on the scene and black man is found with cell phone on ground. Italian man identifys black man in spotlight without a line up.

Black man charged with:
Carjacking: Hung Jury
Carjacking with a weapon: Not guilty.

Problems with the case: Itlian man was gay. Lied to police about story and said he had been kidnapped instead of carjacked. Big difference. The Description he gave of the black man did not match the guy who was found on the doorstep. Another big screw up. Gas Stations no longer take video footage because they would be in court every week. So no video footage of the black man in the car. No finger prints on the car door or steering wheel. Only on the passenger side. No weapon. So it was impossible to convict this man on anything even though he probably did all of it.

Interesting tid bit: The Defense did not put one witness on the stand. They left it up the the jury. and it worked.

 

I've had jury duty 3 times. Selected every time. Jury foreman twice.

1st time - Young kid suing dillards for false imprisionment after being detained for shop lifting. He didn't get any money from us.

2nd time - got selected then they settled right after opening remarks. I don't even recall what it was about.

3rd time - Young guy 25ish was crossing 529 on his dirt bike and got hit by a 16 year old girl who had just gotten her liscense a week earlier. He was suing for damages and claiming she was not paying attention (talking on the phone). He didn't get any money either.

 

I have jury duty coming up.....but am going to beg out of it.

DD

 

Why do you hate America so much???

 

Both my sister and I got summoned for JD during the same week for the first time in our lives.

I got her out of it b/c she's a student, and I postponed mine until April, when I plan to postpone it again.

 

I've only been summoned once, which was right after I turned 20. They said the first 9 or so numbers they drew would be asked to come fill out some paperwork, then return tomorrow. Of course I was the first number called.

It turns out that the paperwork was a several page questionaire that was being used to determine our beliefs on gun control, religion, and capital punishment. So I fill out the paperwork and leave.

We arrive the next day to find out our case is indeed a capital murder case. The judge called us into the jury box, then he described how the case would work and that the burden of proof rested solely with the prosecution, etc. They then had us leave, and called us back inone at a time to take the witness stand. This was the bad part. Both sides took turns grilling us while the accused stared us down, and it literally felt like I was on the one on trial. In the end, the State wanted me on the jury, the defense didn't. This was incredibly ironic since the young man would have never received the death penalty had I been on the jury and had he been convicted.

 

I was a juror for a civil case where a truck-driving company was suing their main operations guy for leaving to make a new company and stealing all of their truck-drivers in the process. They said he was an officer of the company and he breached a fiduciary duty to look out for the welfare of the company. We didn't give them any money, but it was too bad because I really wanted to stick it to the guy's lawyer who was a real sleaze-bag.