Question of the Day!

This coming March marks fifty years for me as a registered voter in the sunny state of Florida... I have served on a jury thrice over those last nearly fifty summers, about once every fifteen annum. One was a DUI, One a Rape, and one a first-degree murder case.

In the first, we convicted the guy mostly because his lawyer was arrogant!

The second guy was accused of several sexual offenses by an old barfly, whose testimony made the entire courtroom break out in laughter a half-dozen times. The weapon used was supposedly a two-inch-pen knife with a wobbly blade. It wouldn't cut anything (we tried it in the jury room.) When we found out that the accused spent three hours having multiple sexual encounters with her on the woman's couch. At the same time, her part-time boyfriend was asleep in the back bedroom (less than 50 feet away). We decided the only possible time she might have objected was the second time they engaged in anal intercourse. We found him Not Guilty of everything but one count of Sodomy (being grossly stupid was not one of the options on the charge sheet. Instead, we decided the misdemeanor, still on the books and used in Florida, even though the Supreme Court has ruled it unconstitutional when applied to gay men. Florida contends the ruling did not cover or prohibit the law application against heterosexuals. Or in cases of rape. It was good enough to help the defendant see the errors of his ways.)

The last was a trial where the accused... while sitting in a neighborhood bar, witnessed his Ex-wife enter with two men he did not know. He left the bar for what witnesses said was 30 minutes. He returned with his 12 ga shotgun, walked up to his ex-wife, shot her in the back from about ten feet away, then turned the weapon on one of the men who had arrived with his Ex and killed the man as he was playing Pool in the side room of the bar. He also hit one other bar patron in the foot with a ricocheted shotgun pellet. He turned and pointed the gun at another fellow who raised his hands. The gunman turned away and went outside for 60 seconds, putting the gun in his car before returning to the bar and saying out loud, "Now you assholes can call the Fxxking Police!"

The defense attorney tried to muster sympathy for the shooter. By listing all the injuries, he sustained after the other bar patrons pounced on him and beat the holy shyte out of the man before the cops got there. His attorney claimed the man was out of his mind with grief over the end of his ten-year marriage and that his capacity to know right from wrong was impaired because he was an alcoholic and was too drunk to stop his rage.

The ex-wife survived but was disabled for life. The men his ex-wife entered with… were her younger brother, whom she had not seen in twenty years, and one of their cousins, neither of whom the ex-husband had ever met. The brother was killed. The cousin was not injured; the random fellow hit in the foot didn't even know he was injured until the cops got after him for tracking blood all over the bar floor. It was only after they checked his boot that they realized the blood was his. (I hope if I am ever shot, I am equally as intoxicated.)

After three days of trial, we spent an entire day deliberating. After 6 rounds of votes, the count remained 10 to 2 for a guilty conviction. We had two "Karens" who insisted on believing the defense arguments that the man was not guilty because he was too drunk to know better.

One of the other guys on the jury remarked that the guy didn't shoot the cousin. This helped me remember the witness who testified that the gunman pointed the weapon at him, and when he raised his hands, the gunman turned and left. I said, "If the defendant was able to decide not to shoot the bystander, he was sober enough to have known what he was doing." We all sat quietly for two minutes before we restarted debating.

We spent another 15 minutes talking about other things he did that showed he was not too drunk to know what he was doing. In the end, we convicted him of First-degree murder. Still, the prosecutor decided that since it took an entire day to reach a verdict, he was not going to seek the death penalty. Has far as I know, the man is still at Raiford Prison near Lawty, Florida.