For 3 days prior to today I have been in hell… serving on Jury duty. Banded with a group of people with a variety of domonating personalities… we left as a hung jury. Almost no-one was willing to budge on their position and in the end I think we looked like a bunch of fools.
The judge was Sally Roehler (something like that) and after jury selection she made a couple comments that tarnished the whole mess… 1. If you make a decision stick to it and do not let anyone sway your inidividual belief, and 2. She estimated this case would be finished in a day, or day in a half….
NOT
The case was this LOSER named Jerome Zemke who was shop lifting at the Rebel Gas Station at Koval and Tropicana. This is a station I pass all the time. Well, he was caught stealing and pulled a knife on the clerks subsequently cutting one of them (scratches but none the less).
We were given the video from inside the store from 4 cameras, holes in the shirt, the knife and a lot of photos.
1. the knife never appeared in any of the videos, just the reaction of the victims and the other customers in the store which was ambiguous to me.
2. the shirt had so much damage in it that it was hard to see that the knife did any damage to it, most of it was worn out….
3. they kept calling this knife a butcher knife, but it was a cheap ass carving knife; it had no fingerprints on it and a partial print that could not be attributed to any of the people involved that was found thrown in the bushes…
4. only wittnesses were 2 victims, and 3 cops…. VICTIM #1: filipino guy who had a hard time with english, but he was very believable and repsonded well to questioning. VICTIM #2 was a total slacker who looked like a fool, he was the one who got jabbed with the knife once in the hand and cut (scratched) across the abdomen. COP#1: Italian Hottie who was a good wittness but he knew almost nothing except he was the one who took the defendant into custody. COP #2: Nice looking black dude but he was a bit foolish because he collected the evidence and gave it all back before it was cataogued except for the knife. CSI EXPERT: Pics of the knife and fingerprinting…. she was a dope. She certainly was no Marge Helgenberger…
Well, 1/3 of the people that were there had a hard time putting the knife in the vitim’s hands, 1/3 could go either way, 1/3 said there was a knife and wanted the guy executed (practically, I am exagerrating). But consider the harshest charge was Attempted Murder with a Deadly Weapon, Burglary, Robbery, and Assualt; all of which with the Deadly Weapon part became something much worse.
As mentioned before, no one would come to a single conclusion. Personal convictions became road blocks. Interresting that the 2 black guys on the case were steadfast against the use of the knife in the commision of the crime????? The old white dudes (me excluded thank you!) were steadfast that he did use the knife. There was definitely bias that people could not come to a middle conclusion with; the burglary and robbery were both felonies.
The judge took us into the court room and told us things we could not know before, that there was a wittness who could not be there that saw the defendant throw the knife. That the defendant had a LONG ASS record of crime in Minnessota!!!!!
He was a shitty guy.
I know he was a shitty guy. White boy, German decendant, looked hispanic (actually) and had gangster tattoos over his stomach, too.
A new trial starts this coming Monday. However, on the way out the defense attourney and the orisecuting attourney were down to talk to all of us and it was fascinating. They were like buddies and helping each other out in the court room. Hell, maybe while waiting they were braiding each other’s hair????? But, they were so very nice!
3 DAYS OF FUCKING SHIT!!!!! BUT!!!!! I found a silver lining. One of the jury panel was a hot paramedic who sat next to me. He would stretch and I could see his tant stomach…. oh yum.