For those who have been summoned for jury duty, what was the most ’12 Angry Men’-thing that happened during deliberation?

12 comments

1. Just a disagreement over how much money to award the plaintiff.

2. I’ve had to go twice. Both times we got to go home within an hour without getting to jury selection.

3. I’ve only been on one jury. It was really cut and dry. The guy was charged with car jacking and it was really obvious he did it. So there was no real drama. One person was kind of on the fence but when we all just went over the evidence he was convinced.

4. I never got picked for a trial. In fact the only time I was called to report was not even for a trial in the court I was assigned to it was to serve as an extended jury pool for another court. That court dealt with 2 murder cases during my time. One had the death penalty as a possible sentence.

5. It really didn’t resemble the movies.

6. Since I was honest on my opinions about weed, guns, religion and alluded to jury nullification during the interview process, I never made it that far.

7. I’ve been called for jury duty 4 times but only once sat on a jury. Was a pretty cut and dry decision, but two jurors had to be convinced to join the rest because they fixated on kind of silly things that didn’t really change the verdict. What should’ve been a 5 minute deliberation took 2-3 hours.

8. I’ve been called a few times. Once everyone pled out before I was called back. Once a deal was made right before we went in to start the jury selection. The last time I was honest in my opinion about how often old ladies will lie to you and was dismissed.

9. I was on the jury for a murder trial. We knew pretty much immediately that we were going to convict him (we all felt the prosecution proved the case beyond a reasonable doubt), but we went back and forth for over a day about whether or not we would convict him of first degree murder and an automatic life sentence, or the lesser charge of second degree murder which would have given him a chance at parole.

   A few people (including me) were strongly for first degree murder, a few were strongly for second degree, and the rest were in the middle. Things got heated periodically, but mostly it was intense debate and a lot of discussion about what we believed and why. It’s a rare thing to have to decide somebody’s fate with strangers, but I can honestly say I see how the system works. The jurors, judge, and attorneys all took their jobs very seriously.

   In the end we convicted him of the higher crime, life in prison. I believe we got it right, but it makes me sad to think about it. The killer and victim were both drug addicts whose lives had gone tragically wrong long before, and now there’s no hope for either of them.

10. I’ve been summoned 3 times. Once I didn’t have to report day of. Once I sat waiting for the better part of a day before being dismissed. Once I made it to the final cut before being dismissed because I was the victim of a similar crime years prior.

11. I only got the summons for jury duty once, when I was in college. The summons was for my parents address, which was still my legal address, but college was 4 hours away. I just sent a letter from the registrar’s office, and I was excused.

    So, not very 12 angry men at all!

12. My dad was on a jury for a guy who got charged with a DWI. Everyone except 1 person thought he was guilty. He said it was pretty annoying given how much evidence they had that he was guilty.