The rest of that week I can never get back

So I know I started describing the harrowing experience that was jury duty and then got sidetracked (busy 10 days before a wedding, who knew!).

So I reported for jury duty on Tuesday. The judge had told us to expect the trial to last about 2 days. The first witness was the actual victim of the robbery in question. When returning home from work on Friday last January, she was approached in the vestibule of her apartment building and robbed by a man who threatened to "put a bullet in her head" if she didn't get down on the ground and give him her wallet, cell phone and iPod. The girl obviously did as she was told. She also got a look at the guy's face when she first saw him in the vestibule (she looked at him to see if he was a fellow resident of the building and if she should let him follow her in).

After the robbery, the victim called 9-1-1 and described the man to the operator as shorter than her (she was 5'8"), possibly Hispanic with an olive skin tone, definitely not black. She noted that he was wearing a tan jacket and looked weak and tired, possibly homeless. She described his skin as "weathered" and said that he had scruffy facial hair. The police came and took her on a canvas of the neighborhood where she didn't see anyone. She then went to the precinct and met with a detective, giving him approximately the same description. She also filled out a paper form with more descriptors. She said the man had brown hair which was short and a buzz cut. She said he was probably 5'4" to 5'7". She then looked through 600 - 800 arrest photos of men approximating her description. She didn't see the man who robbed her in those photos, but did note some men who had similar features. The detective told her he would call if he had any info or needed anything else.

The detective called her on Sunday and told her to come and view the lineup. She viewed the lineup and immediately selected the man who was actually the subject of the lineup (meaning he was the one whom police had arrested in connection with her crime and wanted to see if she would identify him). The man she picked was the defendant in the trial and we were tasked with deciding if he was the man who robbed her or if she was mistaken in her identification.

We did not know why this particular man had come to be arrested for her crime. We didn't hear anything about alibi, prior criminal record or really anything else about the man on trial. We were able to view photos of the lineup, which was more than a little flawed in that the defendant was basically the only man in the line-up who really looked like the description the victim gave. The others were taller, didn't have any facial hair, or otherwise differed markedly from her description. We also learned during the trial that the defendant is 5'9" tall, which conflicts with her testimony that he was shorter than her. We also learned that the defendant had a cut on his face at the time of his arrest which the victim did not mention in her description. There wasn't conclusive proof that it had been there before the incident, but one police officer did take the stand and say that she saw him before the crime and that he looked as he did in his arrest photo (which does show the cut, though the officer was never asked specifically if she remembers the cut).

That's definitely not all of the evidence, but it is a good summary. We began our deliberations by listing our doubts about the accuracy of the victim's identification. We had a fairly productive conversation for about 2 hours until one of the jurors decided to finally speak and told us that he intended to convict the defendant if only because he looked like a robber. I don't do justice in a post to the ridiculousness of this man who was on our jury. I can only say that I have no doubt that we could have reached a verdict in several hours but instead were held for nearly 4 days until he finally agreed to acquit based on the fact that everyone else in the room felt that there was substantial reasonable doubt in the case.

For my part, I felt like the man was probably guilty, but the prosecution had failed to eliminate several large reasonable doubts in the case, and therefore I voted to acquit. Feel free to ask me more about it, but I'm so tired of this case (it took about 9 days!) that I can't write any more! :)