General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I've never served on a jury. Have you? [View all]tonedevil
(3,022 posts)the first was a murder trial. The defendant was accused of supplying the gun used in the murder. The shooter was being tried in parallel, but the cases were separate. This ment two juries were in the court room. The gun supplying defendant's defense was he had the gun in his bedroom where he was weighing marijuana when the shooter came in a took the gun without asking. Found guilty in about two hours.
Then I got on the jury of a fellow accused of selling methamphetamine. His defense was it was for personal use. It actually looked like he might get the lessor charge of simple possession.
On the day the case was to go to jury the prosecutor brought in an expert witness. The arrest happened in a suburb of Sacramento their police had given testimony that was not very convincing. The expert was a police person from Sacramento. He wasn't doing any good either until he asked to see the empty tiny plastic bags that had been found on the defendant at the time of his arrest. They had been characterized as old bags the defendant had horded, but they were still bundled together as they would be purchased from a store. Again, guilty verdict reached in about an hour.