Jury Duty

About a month ago I was summoned for jury duty. Monday, one week ago today, I went in. I was chosen for a criminal trial. The trial started Monday afternoon. A guy was charged with second degree attempted murder with a firearm that discharged. In other words the state said this guy tried to shoot somebody.

The victim was first to testify. He testified he woke up early and was going to the local gyro shop at about 3:30 in the morning to get his thermos filled with ice tea. For no reason at all this guy came out of nowhere, tried to shoot him, they struggled, and then ran away into the night. Yea, right, sure… The story he told police on the morning of the shooting was that he was returning from a local bar.

The defendant’s story was that he was a crack addict, the victim was his dealer, and it was a drug deal that went bad. He approached the victim, gave him twenty dollars, and the victim short changed him on the amount of crack. He argued with the victim about the amount and the victim pulled out a gun. They struggled and the gun went off, grazing the neck of the victim. He then ran away.

The only common elements in the two stories was that there was a gun, they struggled, the gun went off, and the defendant ran away. The victim said it was the defendant’s gun, the defendant said it was the victims gun.

Most of the witnesses called were from the police department. The testimony and evidence indicated that the police didn’t do a very thorough job of investigating.

Tuesday at 12:15 the trial ended. The jury was taken to the jury room. There was lunch waiting for us when we got there. After a leisurely lunch one of the people volunteered to be the foreman. One of the other people said, “Does anyone actually think he did it?” Nope…

For a sense of propriety we talked about the case a bit. One guy thought he may have done it, but the rest of us thought he didn’t do it. At any rate, the charges were not proven beyond a reasonable doubt. We let the guy walk free.

A bit more information about the case… the “victim” had eight felony convictions and was on probation. If he had been discovered using a gun and dealing crack he would have been immediately returned to jail. The defendant, on the other had, was gainfully employed earning $350 a week as a security guard at a local resort hotel. He was forthright with his testimony about his addiction. Which one would you believe?