I'll never sit a jury. Pre-trial determines the evidence, all evidence, before the jury is impaneled. Rules of evidence can dictate, depending on the case, that you're not allowed to hear certain things that could come in favor of the defendant who's life your judging to be lived free or incarcerated, when a juror.
There was a man who years ago was tried in California. As far as I know he's still in prison there. He had a permit, a California permit, to grow medical marijuana. So he had a warehouse where he stored huge quantities, he had everything that would get someone charged with growing and distributing on a federal charge a life sentence. Because the federal government didn't give him the permit. The state of California did.
Federal law trumps state law.
The Fed brought the charges.
It was a slam dunk. He had all this pot, he had all this evidence against him in enormous quantities that showed he did indeed grow, harvest and sold marijuana.
The jury was not allowed to hear he had a legal state permit for all that because the Fed was prosecuting the case.
After the guilty verdict and sentence to life without parole, the news crew who knew all the facts approached a few jurors that agreed to be interviewed right after the case concluded. And that crew informed these jurors of the lawful state permit and the lawful business this man was engaged in under the medical marijuana laws of the state of California. Which were facts not allowed in evidence due to it being a Federal prosecution.
One juror wept openly. The other swore to help the man's defense attorneys fight for an appeal. As did the other jurors there when he piped up with that promise.
When you sit a jury you judge the case based on the facts in evidence. But what a jury doesn't know is that you don't always have all the facts. But you do have all the power to decide the future of someone's life based only on what the state allows you to hear. When it is they who are bringing the charges in the first place.
What don't you hear in court? What was omitted at pre-trial that you'll never know about? Wanna bet someone's life on what you are allowed to know? By those who want you to put someone in a cage because they say there's enough evidence, in their opinion, to warrant that?
Not me.
Not ever.
If your wife is conflicted and does not want to serve on jury duty,
she can invoke her faith at voi dire. That can be an out so that she is dismissed as a juror.
And of course if she owns her own business she can be excused. I own a business and that is what I invoke when I get a jury call up form.
