An interesting week on jury duty. . .

[SewTexas]

I am almost 50, have only been tagged for jury duty once, and we had moved apartments the week before, changed cities, might have even changed counties? so I was dismissed once I showed up, never been called again.

[fickman]

*Update*
The final participant, the one who stayed in the car because he wasn't "dressed out as good as the others" was sentenced. He got a lot of leniency for a) not going inside and b) testifying for the prosecution in the two cases that went to trial. The rest of the robbers were wearing dark pants and long sleeve shirts while he had on white shorts and a short sleeve shirt. I guess he'll call those his "lucky shorts" from now on.

Article from Star-Telegram

Great job by the Tarrant County DA, the detectives, the officers, and the witnesses!


Here's the final shakedown (all of the older 4 also had just under 2 years in county jail awaiting trial):
Juvenile (had the rifle, hit the father during the beating): 10 years

Ring leader (our defendant, plead not guilty, plenty of priors, severely beat the father): 99 years

JD (went inside, changed plea to guilty after our trial): 20 years

DC (man in article, plead guilty, had a .45, stayed in car, cooperated with state): 10 years deferred adjudication / probation

PG (juvenile's brother, left fingerprints in car that they tried to burn, perjured himself during ring leader's trial to say that juvenile (found guilty), ring leader (found guilty), and JD (plead guilty) weren't there): 45 years

. . . like I tell my kids: if you get caught in sin, lying only makes it worse!

[RHenriksen]

Great news, thanks for the update

[JALLEN]

This is a truly fascinating thread, from several standpoints.

Full disclosure.... I have been a lawyer in California for 37 years, but not a criminal defense type. They've never caught any of my clients! I did handle a handful of petty criminal matters as a new lawyer on the court appointed volunteer list decades ago. I've been called to jury duty but never served. I've been a real estate lawyer and investment type mostly.

I have always admired the attitude in the Texas hill country I grew up in, that if something bad happens to you while you are doing something you ought not to be doing, too bad. If you are burglarizing a neighbor's house, and Joe Horn shoots you dead, or if you can't resist carjacking and the owner turns out to be a SEAL sniper who has killed more people than small pox and he kills you when you point a couple of pistols at him, well, whose problem is that?

That said, the only reservation I have about the death penalty is the potential for convicting the wrong person, and that happens, perhaps not as commonly as it used to be but still abysmally often. There was a man released not long ago for a rape, IIRC, who had been in prison for more than 20 years, but finally exonerated..... not just not guilty but actually innocent. There are dozens more. Of course, when you blast the perpetrator in your family room, or right there at the cash register while he is menacing the clerk, there is not much chance of it being the wrong guy, is there.

The chance of prosecutorial error, witness flamboozlement, or outright corruption in the process, requires that procedural safeguards, many of which are embodied for extremely sound reasons in the US Constitution or which flow therefrom, be scrupulously maintained even at the cost of considerable frustration, delay and cost. Convicting an innocent party seems like mere bad luck, until it is you, your brother or son or cousin, or parent, who gets convicted wrongly. And that does happen, despite the considerable safeguards.

So, we absolutely must have prosecutors, LEO's, judges and jurors, like the OP, who make it their solemn duty to get it right, every time. If not, our system of justice is scarcely worthy of the name, more resembling the third world hellholes we ridicule and despise.

Thanks again for a very fascinating thread.