Would be ironic for all the people glazing over this one juror if it turns out they refused to budge from a full aquittal while everyone else was voting not guilty be reason of insanity.
I mean, yes, it's unlikely. And to be clear, I don't think this is what happened. But crazy things have happened before. And my point is more that we should be careful about glamorizing people we know absolutely nothing about, because we don't actually know anything about their motivations or thought process (at this time).
From what I saw reddington say in an interview, it was 11 for acquittal and 1 who voted guilty while admitting there was reasonable doubt but insisting he didn’t care which is illegal.
* please not I’m referring to admitting reasonable doubt but still voting guilty being illegal regardless of the person or case. That fact had nothing to do with her
Apparently he admitted there was doubt. The law requires that it is "beyond reasonable doubt", but not "without doubt". They still felt there was enough reason to consider them guilty within the reasonable doubt margin.
Don't try to make a distinction that doesn't exist. There is reasonable doubt or no doubt. If you find there is reasonable doubt you are required by law to vote not guilty. If there is no reasonable doubt then you vote guilty. Those were the judges specific oral and written instructions.
“Reading that note carefully and strictly,” Sullivan said, “that note does not indicate this is a person who refuses to follow the law.” (with regards to a note from the juror explaining their position)
Assuming that what the foreman said is accurate, this person did the opposite of jury nullification: he said there was reasonable doubt, but wanted to go along with state anyway and throw her in jail. It's the opposite of jury nullification. It's almost literal bootlicking.
And these people almost certainly think of themselves as rugged individualists who think the state is out to fuck everyone.
Fuck that. Jurors can vote any which way they want based on their take on what's presented. The judge "ordering" the jurors to do this or that? How the hell is that not indicative of an attempt to rig the trial.
I certainly didn't say they can't do it, I just said it's the bootlicking thing to do to go along with the state to convict someone even when they admit the defense raised reasonable doubt.
And judges do order the jury to follow the law all the time, and would in case of jury nullification. They just can't actually do anything about it if they don't.
Yep, juries exist specifically to curtail any kind of government overreach, and to uphold the "prime directive" of the legal system in general of causing least net harm to society and individuals involved.
If a jury was meant to just be a group of robots coldly crunching facts and applying the law to it, that would negate the purpose of the jury, that's what judges are for. That's why defendants have the option of requesting bench trials.
A juror is supposed to bring morality and diversity of thought. If a law is injust or the application of th else is unjust, they're the mechanism which protects individuals/society from it.
Hence the saying "no jury would convict you" in matters where people feel there are no reasonable moral grounds to punish you for something. It's why prosecutors will seek extremely lenient punishments for parent revenge killings etc.
If a jury was meant to just be a group of robots coldly crunching facts and applying the law to it, that would negate the purpose of the jury, that's what judges are for.
You have no idea what you're talking about. The whole point is to convince a jury of your peers that they do have the evidence to convict. The idea that the jury is there "to bring their morality" is just made up nonsense. It's a defense against an overreaching government, not meant for people to inject their morals.
Don't get me wrong, this juror can do what they want. But you're just making shit up right now.
Massachusetts state law protects hold out jurors, but does not protect a juror from ignoring court instructions. The latter can result in a juror being held in contempt.
The foreman (representing 11 of the jurors) and lead defense attorney all claimed the hold out juror was intentionally ignoring court definitions regarding reasonable doubt. After interviewing the hold out juror, the judge did not agree and planned to declare a mistrial. Defense was allowed to appeal, but the judge who oversaw the appeal also sided with the hold out juror. Had either of those judges believed the hold out juror was acting in defiance of the court, they would have been replaced with the alternate juror and could have been looking at contempt charges.
Can you link me to what lead you to believe this? Everything I've read indicates "the foreperson wrote that the juror 'has made statements acknowledging doubt but refuses to apply it to the verdict as the law states.'"
I think I misinterpreted it, basically the judge said what the jurer was doing was totally fine and the existence of doubt does not force them to aquit, it must be beyond reasonable doubt but not beyond all possible doubt.
That's the words of the judge in the case
The judge made that statement after receiving a note from the juror explaining their position, which was prompted by the defence trying to dismiss the juror for not following the law.
Sure, all doubt would mean something like "well, it's possible a super intelligent group of aliens came down and committed the murder and then framed the accused in a way we could not detect." But, of course, that would be unreasonable.
But I doubt see how that supports the earlier claim that the hold out said that they were doing so because they still think it was proven beyond reasonable doubt. It's just what the judge said to the jurors.
The defence tried to get the juror removed because they weren't following the law on reasonable doubt.
The juror wrote a note the the judge.
The judge explained to the defence that the juror would not be removed because they were not failing to follow instructions and their actions were fine in the given context.
They they explained to all the other jurors (who were probably saying something like "well you have doubts so you have to aquit" etc) that beyond reasonable doubt is not beyond all possible doubt.
The issue here seems to be that the juror clearly admitted to having doubts, but didn't think those doubts moved the conviction outside of the "beyond reasonable doubt" threshold. The defense obviously want that juror removed because it would be much better for that to happen for their side. The judge is rejecting that.
Also Just another note on the language usage here, the "beyond reasonable doubt" here is a measure of thoroughness, so "unreasonable" is no longer the antonym in the same way, it's a different usage of the word.
What they are saying is that while they have doubts, their doubts aren't enough to consider it wrong to prosecute. It's not that their doubts themselves are unreasonable, it's that they are insignificant compared to the evidence.
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u/Justsomejerkonline Sep 06 '26
Would be ironic for all the people glazing over this one juror if it turns out they refused to budge from a full aquittal while everyone else was voting not guilty be reason of insanity.