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Adam Ford
F L I N T O I D
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I was dismissed from jury duty today. I was the first juror dismissed. I was dismissed by the Prosecutor for no reason given. There is a chance the prosecutor may have dismissed me because I questioned her assertion that you don't need a weapon to be charged with armed robbery. I said I would have to have that law explained to me how someone who is unarmed can be charged and conviced of armed robbery. I guess a possible example would be using a toy gun. Do you think someone using a toy gun or holding their hand under their shirt to simulate a gun should be charged with armed robbery? It is impossible to say if that is why the prosecutor dismissed me but it is a possibility.
In addittion it appeared to me that the prosecutor and defense and Judge Fullerton were engaged in what seemed to me to be jury tampering. It seemed pretty clear to me that they only wanted the jurors to decide based on what the law says and the facts. I think I may have been the only juror in the room that could have given te defendent a fair trial because I am more familiar with how the legal system is set up and that the jury can decide on the law and facts. http://caught.net/juror.htm
On a brighter note I will probably never have to worry about serving on a jury in Genesee County and the prosecutor did do an excellent job at stacking the deck. As soon as I was removed I was thinking there goes that guy's chance at a fair trial. |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 12:32 pm |
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squash
F L I N T O I D
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Jury tampering is a very serious charge. I wold hope that you had more proof than just your observations.
quote:
It seemed pretty clear to me that they only wanted the jurors to decide based on what the law says and the facts.
If this is not what you're using to make your decision than it seems to me you'd be a very poor juror. You were the wrong person for the job. They saw it and you were dismissed. The system worked.
Is this one of those instances of your biting sarcasm that I just don't get? |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 12:58 pm |
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Frappuhn
F L I N T O I D
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Adam seams to have a high opinion of his ability to be the perfect juror.
You should have just saved the taxpayers alot of money and told the judge if the defendant was guilty or not!
I take it this is the first time you were call in. |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 1:03 pm |
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WillDavison
F L I N T O I D
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| Did any of them have a laptop present? Is it possible the googled your name and found your posts here? You've said a few things here that will probably be your ticket off of any jury for the rest of your life! Yeah, I'd say the system worked, at least that day anyways. |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 1:40 pm |
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tricky mutha
F L I N T O I D
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| Tricky's tale- I was summoned to Jury duty a few years ago- we sat in a stuffy room with warped floorboards and I read every Grisham novel I could get my hands on. After five hours we were herded into the courtroom. The late Judge Snodgrass explained we were about to witness a high profile case- the defendants had allegedly incinerated a litter of cats. The pool of thirty or so gasped and murmured before being seated for questioning by defense attorneys who systematically began to eliminate women. After time the pool had depleted to three women and eleven men including myself. A defense attorney turned to me asking me specifically how I felt about cats- I told him when I was young my family rescued a cat from a local university where someone had attempted to torch it. We consequently named our feline friend Cinder. Disappointed, the attorney asked for my dismissal. |
_________________
"Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there"- John Steinbeck |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:04 pm |
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Adam Ford
F L I N T O I D
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quote:
squash schreef:
Jury tampering is a very serious charge. I wold hope that you had more proof than just your observations.
quote:
It seemed pretty clear to me that they only wanted the jurors to decide based on what the law says and the facts.
If this is not what you're using to make your decision than it seems to me you'd be a very poor juror. You were the wrong person for the job. They saw it and you were dismissed. The system worked.
Is this one of those instances of your biting sarcasm that I just don't get?
They seemed to be implying that the jurors could not rule on the validity of the law. In other words if the Jim Crow laws were on the books they should be followed. |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:28 pm |
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Adam Ford
F L I N T O I D
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quote:
Frappuhn schreef:
Adam seams to have a high opinion of his ability to be the perfect juror.
You should have just saved the taxpayers alot of money and told the judge if the defendant was guilty or not!
I take it this is the first time you were call in.
They should be able to easily find him guilty now without me on there. The prosecutor seemed like she had everyone convinced that unarmed robbery = armed robbery. |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:30 pm |
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squash
F L I N T O I D
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I do not claim to be a legal expert. Not even close. I do know enough to say that it is not the job of the juror to "rule on the validity of the law." It is the duty of the juror to rule on the guilt or innocence of the accused based on the arguments presented.
Your comparison of what you did to the civil rights crusaders is as laughable as your comparison of Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler. |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:38 pm |
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Adam Ford
F L I N T O I D
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quote:
WillDavison schreef:
Did any of them have a laptop present? Is it possible the googled your name and found your posts here? You've said a few things here that will probably be your ticket off of any jury for the rest of your life! Yeah, I'd say the system worked, at least that day anyways.
You live in Davison? Maybe some day they'll start putting white kids in Davison in jail for marijuana possession like they do if Flint. I support the United States Costitution. It may be hard to you to believe but there are some unconstitutional laws on the books that should not be followed by juries. It's good for the criminal justice system and black people in my district who want black people put in jail for things like marijuana position that I am heavily out numbered by people like you.
Maybe someday Davison can try some of Flint's ordinances where they can arrest people for walking down the street at certain times. There's few enough people like me where they can get away with things like that. |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:39 pm |
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Adam Ford
F L I N T O I D
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quote:
squash schreef:
I do not claim to be a legal expert. Not even close. I do know enough to say that it is not the job of the juror to "rule on the validity of the law." It is the duty of the juror to rule on the guilt or innocence of the accused based on the arguments presented.
Your comparison of what you did to the civil rights crusaders is as laughable as your comparison of Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler.
If you're no legal expert than why are you even voicing your uninformed opinions? Did you even look at the link or is that too much "work" to do. Perhaps you should consider doing some research before you run your mouth.
I'm glad I provided you with some amusement for your meager intellect. You would probably get along with lawmakers in Lansing and DC very well. Maybe you should run for office and officially put yourself up for sale. |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:45 pm |
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squash
F L I N T O I D
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You got me. I rarely look at your links, read your cut and pastes or watch your youtube videos. I express my uninformed opinions because that's what I do. It's just silly. I don't wish to get into a pissing match with you.
But even my meager intellect knows the difference between our and are. |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:00 pm |
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Demeralda
F L I N T O I D
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I admire your advocacy on behalf of minorities in Flint, Adam. I have friends with good jobs, nice cars, and yet somehow they get pulled over at a rate about 100 times beyond what I would consider harassment. They're lucky she's such a peaceful soul...
However, I'm not sure why you're so angry at people who responded, and I'm really not sure how you arrived at "jury tampering." I ask you, why bother to tamper with a jury for another run-of-the-mill crime that will end up in a conviction, anyway?
They don't NEED to tamper.
If you were sitting in some sort of racketeering trial, maybe I'd say.
In addittion it appeared to me that the prosecutor and defense and Judge Fullerton were engaged in what seemed to me to be jury tampering. It seemed pretty clear to me that they only wanted the jurors to decide based on what the law says and the facts.
I just want you to read that again and think about what you're saying. It actually almost reads as if YOU were trying to tamper with the verdict. |
_________________
I'm no model lady. A model's just an imitation of the real thing. - Mae West |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:17 pm |
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Adam Ford
F L I N T O I D
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quote:
squash schreef:
You got me. I rarely look at your links, read your cut and pastes or watch your youtube videos. I express my uninformed opinions because that's what I do. It's just silly. I don't wish to get into a pissing match with you.
But even my meager intellect knows the difference between our and are.
I admit I do sometimes fail to proofread my posts fully. I appreciate if you would fail to offer criticism if you can't even do due dilligence and look at the supporting information. |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:06 pm |
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Adam Ford
F L I N T O I D
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quote:
Demeralda schreef:
I admire your advocacy on behalf of minorities in Flint, Adam. I have friends with good jobs, nice cars, and yet somehow they get pulled over at a rate about 100 times beyond what I would consider harassment. They're lucky she's such a peaceful soul...
However, I'm not sure why you're so angry at people who responded, and I'm really not sure how you arrived at "jury tampering." I ask you, why bother to tamper with a jury for another run-of-the-mill crime that will end up in a conviction, anyway?
They don't NEED to tamper.
If you were sitting in some sort of racketeering trial, maybe I'd say.
In addittion it appeared to me that the prosecutor and defense and Judge Fullerton were engaged in what seemed to me to be jury tampering. It seemed pretty clear to me that they only wanted the jurors to decide based on what the law says and the facts.
I just want you to read that again and think about what you're saying. It actually almost reads as if YOU were trying to tamper with the verdict.
It seemed like the system was rigged. I didn't like how they were saying that whatever the law says is automaticallly correct. From what they were saying I almost question what the point to a jury trial really is. They were saying whatever the judge tells us and whatever the law says is unquestionable. I thought that unarmed robbery = armed robbery sounded questionable.
The better term might be 'jury rigging". If I was an attorney and representing a client charged with drug defense my understanding of the law is I would likely not be able to provide my client with a full defense. I am not a lawyer but the research I have found shows lawyers are prohibited from challenging the constitutionality of drug laws.
http://www.ajs.org/jc/juries/jc_powers_nullification.asp
"For example, federal judges routinely tell juries: “I instruct you that the law as given by the court in these and other instructions constitute the only law for your guidance. It is your duty to accept and to follow the law as I give it to you even though you may disagree with the law.” If a jury nonetheless intentionally decides to ignore this instruction, and apply its own concept of what the law should be, then the jury is said to have engaged in “jury nullification.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification
"The jury system was established because it was felt that a panel of citizens, drawn at random from the community, and serving for too short a time to be corrupted, would be more likely to render a just verdict, through judging both the accused
and the law,
than officials who may be unduly influenced to follow merely the established law. Jury nullification is a reminder that the right to trial by one's peers affords the public an opportunity to take a dissenting view about the justness of a statute or official practices."
I admit it is debatable who could be considered to be engaged in jury tampering. Perhpas they could charge me with it.
http://www.caught.net/juror.htm
"Meanwhile, out in Nevada, a 50-year-old florist and grandmother almost landed in prison for her efforts to help spread the word to jurors. When her son went on trial for drug charges in federal court, Yvonne Regas and a friend papered the windshields of nearby parked cars, hoping to let the jurors learn the completely unexpected fact that her son faced 450 years in prison for a single drug transaction nine years earlier. Federal authorities charged her with jury tampering and obstruction of justice, but eventually dropped the charges. Presumably, they gave up hope of figuring out how they could get jurors to convict her without showing them the contents of the pamphlets she had been distributing--and then her jury would know the truth about nullification."
I've heard jury nullification was one of the reasons the government was forced to repeal alcohol prohibition.
http://www.greenmac.com/eagle/ISSUES/ISSUE23-9/07JuryNullification.html
Despite the courts' refusal to inform jurors of their historical veto power, jury nullification in liquor law trials was a major contributing factor in ending alcohol prohibition. (Today in Kentucky jurors often refuse to convict under the marijuana prohibition laws.)
http://www.greenmac.com/eagle/ISSUES/ISSUE23-9/07JuryNullification.html
"But judges rarely "fully inform" jurors of their rights, especially their power to judge the law itself and to vote on the verdict according to conscience. Instead, they end up assisting the prosecution by dismissing any prospective juror who will admit to knowing about this right, starting with anyone who also admits having qualms with any specific law."
me?
It did appear the prosecutor was on a hunt for any juror that might have a problem convicting someone who was unarmed of armed robbery. I was the only one who appeared to have any qualms about it.
"In fact, if you have doubts about the fairness of a law, you have the right and obligation to find someone innocent even though they have actually broken the law! John Adams, our second president, had this to say about the juror: "It is not only his right but his duty...to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court." http://www.greenmac.com/eagle/ISSUES/ISSUE23-9/07JuryNullification.html |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:25 pm |
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Smakutus
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quote:
Adam Ford schreef:
Do you think someone using a toy gun or holding their hand under their shirt to simulate a gun should be charged with armed robbery?
Yes..
Jeff |
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Tue Jun 24, 2008 8:35 pm |
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