I think you would have a moral, legal and ethical right to hold out and hung jury be damned.

These were very different criminal trials in very different locations (one rural, one big-city). In both cases they were not doubting that they made the right decision, but in each case it was difficult psychologically and took some time and a lot of talk afterward to get through it and come to terms with it. The power of the GROUP is incredibly strong. If you were not a person of self-confidence, it would be very hard to resist.

It's probably what scares the fuck out of the government. The person who has this kind of personality has many traits in common with the others with this kind of personality. It's been labeled the whistleblower personality, but it includes a solid internal compass that points due north and isn't easily swayed by outside influence.

One problem with people who have this personality is that it can be and usually is a very strong personality, pulling less strong personalities with it. That's okay if the person truly does have the internal compass that points north, but still, those of us with that personality watch to keep others from following the inevitable leader but rather prefer that each person find their own compass.

I will not bow to the herd when they are acting in a group psychology. Period. And it costs me more than it should, too. Anyone who knows me on DU knows this.

but it has an integrity that must be admired. Of course, I admit to bias, as I am "burdened" with such a personality and frankly, I wouldn't give it up for anything, but it's tough and I have scars, some still bleeding.

my admiration, courage is not easy!

I'm guessing the holdout jurors tried to debate for an hour (if that) and just said "fine; fuck it, whatever, let's get it over with and go home...

Not on the same page at all.

nt.

Otherwise, why not vote right there in the courtroom? Pass a "hat", have everyone put their provided slip in it, and since every "reasonable" and "thinking" person would have the same opinion based on the evidence they heard, the verdict would ALWAYS be unanimous.

Correct?

I guess it depends on many factors.

Pissed the judge off, pissed the other jurors off, but yes, I did that. And I am glad that I did.

ignoring the jury instructions and considering evidence/testimony they were told that they were not to consider.

In a case like this I would take detailed notes of what was going on in the jury room. If I felt that there was some hankie-pankie going on in the deliberations I would not keep my mouth shut either.

to Not Guilty? Jesus.

The judge returned with "we need a specific question" and by then the manslaughter people went to acquittal. At which point the murder 2 person just threw their hands up.

the manslaughter law again as the jury requested instead of insisting the jury have a specific question. Ugh.

They just wanted to have it broken down in laymans terms.

I'd bet that had the judge had the defense and prosecution draft a simple clarification of the manslaughter law (breaking it down into simple, understandable, terms; because laws can be rather loaded), we'd have a different outcome or at least a deadlock.

to work through the manslaughter instructions.

I think the judge should have gotten off of her butt, brought them back into the courtroom and spelled it out to them. This was just too highway a profile case to cut corners.

Jury instructions and jury questions are incredibly critical. When a conviction gets overturned on appeal, 9 times out of 10 it is because of bad jury instructions or improper answers to jury questions.

That's why these lawyers were running around with laptops and papers and Supreme Court cases, and looking all serious, when the jury asked their question. That type of thing is incredibly important because the entire trial can be thrown out with just one wrong word.

What they did was look for other cases with exactly the same type of question, and then see how the Florida Supreme Court ruled on those cases.

You'd have to ask a lawyer, but your suggestion to bring the jury in and have the judge spell it out in certain terms might not be legal.

difficult for them to come up with a very specific question. If the judge had them come back into the courtroom and talk to them she might have been able to help them verbalize what it was they did not understand and THEN provide them with an answer. She could have dealt with them by asking a series of questions all geared to helping them get to the issue of concern.

2nd degree murder was laid out in laymans terms throughout the case. The closing arguments were about 2nd degree murder.

The prosecution was a joke.

so if that person was one who though the was guilty at first they could have switched just to get out of there.

But we're talking murder case and there's no way I'd pass so easily.

It's a damn shame, perhaps the one person who actually listened to the case, who actually gave it a critical view, and who didn't go in their biased, was just prone to peer pressure.

Written by playwright Reginald Rose, it was based on his actual experience on jury duty. I've read the actual trial he served on was manslaughter though, not murder as in the movies.

Miss Daisy. Too bad "the boy" got capped by "Georgie". Who's gonna drive Daisy to the Piggly WIggly? Oh my!

Caving on such short notice is lack of character in my book. They wouldn't even deliberate an extra day to discuss and question even their own decision.

All of them were complete wimps, pushovers and uninterested in even trying. I have no respect whatsoever for such shallow personalities when a life has been lost and justice is in their hands. A travesty.

There were 12 when I served in Ohio.

... calls for 6 instead of 12

The state doesn't like repeating trials and it's a lot easier to get 6 people to all side one way or the other than 12.

Thanks.

Long trial
Sequestered
No family
No freedom
Wanted to go home
Long Saturday of 13 hours of deliberation

And the one juror who was for murder 2...broke down and changed her vote.

One of the initial 3 who wanted acquittal, got the 3 others ( 2 manslaughter and 1 m2), to fold like a house of cards under that pressure.


( under that pressure, the 2 Man and 1 M2 would have sold their first born to get out of there)

I think it was B37.... and her agenda-driven book deal.


Had they not been sequestered, it might have been different.

convinced the others that she knew how the law was to be applied and bullied them that way.

it was in a related field, the rules worked differently in the 2 businesses. It was when polling them afterwords that it came out how she had convinced them all that my claim was not good because of her 'experience'.

We either need professional jurists, or we need to give them the ability to ask questions at the end of the presentation of evidence. There were alot of things they couldn't figure out, which we didn't address, which had them confused and could have easily been allayed had they been allowed to question.

Our court system is overly fraught with technicalities the regular joe just can't relate to.

Most jury's go in one way and come out another - that's the point of the system. Not liking a verdict does not mean you change the system to make up for a verdict you do not support.