Thread I was a juror in a murder case.

Jul 17, 2015
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Marklar
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It was a pretty interesting experience as i never even had jury duty before. We spent most of our time in the jury room everyday and not in the courtroom. They take so many damn breaks it was ridiculous.

Day 1 was 95% just trying to find all the jurors as people kept getting dismissed. I was one of the original 13 jurors called up. We were told the jury can't talk to or ask questions to the lawyers. we may write down questions for the witness's only. Anyway like i said that took most of the day and the only other thing that happened were the opening statements. The prosecutor laid out what she was going to do perfectly. This public defender came out and said he only had 1 witness to call throughout the trial. I thought that was a little weird but like he told us in his opening statement we were to come in thinking his client was innocent until the evidence proved otherwise.

Day 2-3 was the prosecutor calling up multiple cop witnesses to talk about the suspects phone gps and gunshots. Those were interesting but the police did very sloppy work with evidence collection. There was a muddy bootprint on the door, blood on a cord not tested, the backdoor the shooter left through not tested for finger prints. Not testing the suspects clothes for gun shot residue etc.

So i was very curious and asked a lot of questions. 1 question i asked was why wasn't the muddy bootprint on the front door tested against the suspects shoes. This cop gave some lame answer that he tried to do a visual test with their eyes but couldn't see the pattern good enough. A cop then went on to say they did no finger printing or dna testing at the house because the suspect lived there so it would be everywhere and on top of that they already had a witness saying who killed her mother. Oh and some guy from the michigan state police said they never test for gun shot residue because it proves nothing. He said if it comes back positive it just proves they shot a gun but doesn't prove they did a murder.

So the main witness was the daughter of the woman murdered. She moved in with her mother and the suspect recently. According to the daughter this all started because her mother told the suspect not to buy anymore cigs. He blew up and choked her and pulled her by her feet off the bed. He stopped and left the house. He returned later that night and got into an argument with the victim outside the house. She comes back inside and locks the door telling her daughter that the suspect was out there drunk and had a gun. The victim then looked out the window and saw the suspect slash the tires on the her car. This enraged the victim and she called the cops. When the cops got there the suspect was already gone.

3 hours later the victims daughter woke up to hearing someone kick in the front door. She was terrified so she stayed in her room and listened. She heard her mother pleading for her life "no vashon you don't have to do this" She then heard the suspect say "this is how you gonna do me bitch?" and then heard 4 gunshots. the victims daughter was already on the phone with the cops by then. They played the 911 call and the only thing we could hear were 3 gunshots at the beginning of the call and the daughter whispering into the phone saying my moms husband shot her.

This prosecutor then brought up 2 of the suspects ex girlfriends who testified that when they tried breaking up with him he assaulted them. One of them he cut on the face with a butcher knife before she got away. So even with sloppy police work about collecting physical evidence there was still plenty of other evidence.


The only witness the defense called was a so called expert on gun shot residue. This prosecutor did her homework on him and brought up multiple police jobs he had been fired from and even other court cases where he was ruled not to be an expert on gsr. This guy hurt the defense more than he helped and he was their only witness.

So we listen to the closing statements and then it was time for us to go back and finally talk about the case with each other and make our decision. We all said guilty pretty much right away but MI has this thing called open murder where if you all think guilty you then have to decide where it was murder in the first or murder in the second degree. The only difference between them is murder 1 is premeditated.

we spent most of our 2 hours deliberating about whether it was murder 1 or 2. I was on of the people who thought murder in the first degree. I mean if he is kicking in the door he doesn't plan on talking he planned on killing her and that is what happened. We all agree on guilty of murder in the first degree. As the verdict was read his face doesn't change at all he is still stonefaced like he was the whole trial. Victims family start to cry and hug each other after the verdict. i look over and one mouths thank you.

the worst to me was I didn't like having to see the picture of the dead body but we all had to look as it was part of the evidence.

anyway this dude is going to get life without parole, after our verdict and the trail ended we were sent back to the jury room. The judge comes in and tells us ok you are now private citizens again so i can tell you this. He was offered plea deals before the trial but turned them all down.



this was all a very interesting few days
 
Good story Wicks. Given the info you guys had seems like you made the right call.
Sadly, the public non-defender is about par for the course.
 
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Fuckin hell. A guy waits for weeks for a Wickie thread & he gets a tome for his troubles. As if anyone is going to read all that fuckin hell
 
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