12 people, one unified decision (maybe)…

Before the judge dismissed the jury, he released the 13th Juror – the alternate. The trial was over and there would be no need for her to participate in the sentencing deliberation.

As soon as the 12 jurors retired to the deliberation room, we were instructed to select a foreman. This was odd to me, as the foreman should have been decided upon the day before when the original 12 were selected, however it did not happen that way.

As soon as the bailiff closed the door to the room, all 11 fingers pointed at me. Yeah, no shit… I’m always the foreman. Fine. Whatever, let’s do this shit and get out of here – was my only thought.

Before we did anything else, I asked that we go around the room and allow each person to say their thoughts and what they felt the punishment should be. Our sentencing limitations were as follows – we could give no less than 180days and no more than 2years. We could also decide if we felt like a monetary fine was appropriate. If we decided to fine the defendant, we’d have to agree upon that amount as well.

The first guy to vote was a gay guy. There’s no significance to the fact that he was gay other than the fact that he announced that he was and was a strong liberal before he even gave his opinion. It was his stance that the defendant be given no fine and thought that for the offense of stealing less than $100 in groceries the sentence should not be over the 180days.

The next 8 people voted the max sentence of 2years or 24months and no fine. I think we all agreed that a fine was pointless. The state would never see a dime from this guy anyhow. Thinking back on it, I wish we would have been open to a fine. Maybe if they guy refused to pay or could not pay it, there would be more severe repercussions in the future. Hindsight…

The 9th person to vote was one of the 4 women on the jury. She was of the same mind as the 1st juror. This is only $100 and she would not agree to sentence him to the max. She was extremely defensive about her decision saying that she refused to say 2years because that’s what everyone else thought. I said – That’s fine. You don’t have to agree with everyone else. You are entitled to your opinion just as the rest of us have been. She then wanted to argue her side in extreme detail. I, as the foreman, cut her off to give the remaining 2 jurors the chance to voice their opinions before we went full force in finding a middle ground on the punishment.

The remaining 2 jurors fell in line with the middle 8 – 2years and no monetary fine.

What I thought would be open and shut was about to turn into a damn zoo. The first guy who opposed the max sentence originally said that he’d be comfortable with the max sentence as long as there was no fine attached to the sentence. All but one of us agreed that that was a fair sentencing – the defensive chick, of course. It seemed a little too easy to get the gay guy to flip on his original opinion which drenched in extreme passion to only sentence this guy to 180days. It ended up that the changing of his mind so quickly was in fact easier then it seemed. He flip-flopped back and forth on his stance and suggestions as to a sentencing compromise. His back and forth closely aligned with the woman who held the only other opposing view of the max sentence.

Ok… this was going nowhere and quick. Aside from that, there was another juror, a male, who was resistant to anything under 2years/max sentence. It became clear quickly that if we didn’t find a middle ground acceptable to all, we’d hang this jury, there’d be a mistrial and this would have to start all over again. Another jury selection. Another plea. Another day spent on something so blatantly obvious to me and 10 other jurors. I decided to make things a little more real for these 2 and more specifically, the opposing woman. The gay guy flip-flopped so much that if I figured if I could get the woman on board, he’d follow in tow – I was almost positive of that fact.

I say to her – Is it the amount of money that is a problem for you to sentence this guy to the max jail time?

She says – Yes, it’s $100. I cannot justify sending someone to jail for 2years for just $100 in groceries from Fiesta.

Me – It’s not about it JUST being $100. Let me ask you something. Let’s say this defendant stole $100 from your bank account directly. And let’s say that his stealing your $100 caused all the checks you’d just written for bills and such to bounce. Would it feel like JUST $100 then?

She didn’t respond, instead she stared at me. She knew there was no logical thing to say in that moment that defended her stance.

Me – Furthermore, you are almost saying that to steal $100 from someone else is not that big of a deal and holds no significant importance. So is it your position that $100 isn’t a large enough amount to punish someone to the fullest? Let me put it like this… let’s say there are 1,000 people who stole $100. Now you are talking about $10,000. Would it be easier for you to sentence someone to 2years if they’d stolen $10,000? Because essentially, you are saying that $100 stolen by one person isn’t really worthy of being considered a real crime. And I might agree with you on a smaller scale. I’m looking at the bigger picture. I happen to feel like your stance sets the precedence of leniency on the worth of what was stolen and not on the basic underlying fact that no matter how much or how small it is that is taken, it’s still against the law. I would be less inclined to punish this defendant to the fullest had this been his first offense. We’re talking about 7 known theft offenses in Texas, one in Georgia and 1 from when he was 16years old. It’s not just about the $100 here. Furthermore, let’s say he stole $100 every offense in Texas. That makes $700 total. And 1 step further, we only know of the 7 other previous cases that he was caught on. This does not account for the times he’s gotten away with stealing something. Which that is an unknown and a guess and not fair to use that as a discriminating factor in this particular case, but the thought really drives home the severity of this case. Does that make sense?

She says – I just think that 2years is too severe. I can’t bring myself to give him 2years for $100.

Me – It’s my general feeling that this guy knows exactly what he’s doing. Let’s go back to jury selection. I wondered why the defendant was present for it at all. Did anyone else notice the defendant’s demeanor during the jury selection?

A couple people chimed in with – yeah, it was really odd. He had his head hung low and was giving off the feeling of embarrassment, remorse, shame…

Me – Guilt? And let me say that I was not biased against this man because of his demeanor during jury selection. I just found it odd. I always listen to all the facts and make a decision on the basis of the facts in relation to how a person is behaving – not solely on one or the other. That being said, my initial feeling of his demeanor being one of guilt was confirmed this morning when he changed his plea to guilty. I can’t help but think that the jury selection, the defense attorney’s specific jury selection questions, and the fact his attorney never once told him to sit up and be more attentive was all a plan to get the jury to first feel badly for the guy before he even spoke in his own defense and second to belittle the severity of the charged offense. Like a smoke screen, almost.

There were several other jurors that had felt the same way as I had. However, the 1st juror was now getting a little out of control with his reasoning.

He says – why put him in for 2year and waste the tax payer’s dollars? Furthermore, he’s just going to get out and do it again, so what’s the point?

Me – Well for starters, you’re paying the same amount of taxes whether we put this guy in jail for an hour or 10years – so that line of reasoning is rather inconsequential to determining his sentence for this particular offense. That’s one. Two, you have no idea what this guy will do when he gets out of jail this time. It is not your responsibility to pull out a crystal ball and tell the future. It is however, your responsibility to take into account all his acknowledged past charges and guilty verdicts for theft and make a decision of how to sentence THIS offense. No future offense has happened yet. Furthermore, what’s to say he goes to jail this time and has his moment – the moment where he does want to be better and change and then does and never steals anything ever again. I could argue that the longer time we give him in jail, the more time he has to have that moment in time.

Someone else chimed in – and we know in jail he can get the education on computers that he desperately wants, or at least made it seem like he wanted. He can also get cancer treatment for free – well on the tax payer’s dollars. He admittedly hasn’t done that yet because he didn’t have the time, money or resources to do so.

>I’m not sure who said this but it made all us laugh… After the juror said – He admittedly hasn’t done that yet because he didn’t have the time, money or resources to do so. *And you can’t steal a bag of chemo…*

He could reap all those benefits while spending more time in jail, should he choose to be better and make a change.

Me – And really, let’s think about it like this. When I was young and I would get punished for bad behavior, I would get spanked. As I got older and reached the driving age, spanking me would be a fleeting punishment. I’d rather get the snot spanked out of me than lose my driving privileges. The same concept applies here. This guy has had probation – which he could not even successfully complete without being arrested for another theft charge. He has successfully convinced every jury and judge up until this point that he has learned his lesson and wants to be a contributing member of society to the point that he has never been sentenced to anything more than the minimum. Now, how’s that minimum sentence working out? Because to me, it’s like spanking a 16year old and then letting them go drive and hang out with their friends – AKA not doing a damn thing. Something has to change and what we can change is the punishment.

The female juror that was opposed to max sentence says – I agree that something has to change; I just don’t think 2years is the answer.

Me – Ok, now we’re getting somewhere. What do you suggest if not 2years?

Her – Oh, I don’t know. Just not 2years.

I’m like great. This is like everyone else in the world. Bitch about the problems in the world and drag everyone down and never see a problem and offer a solution. What a damn beating. I’ve already talked about this for an hour longer then I even thought we’d have to.

So this brilliant guy says – let’s take the average of what all the jurors want to sentence and go with that number.

Me – Ok, let’s see what that comes out to.

And somehow, the number came out to 22months. Which, I was positive that the opposing woman wasn’t going to agree to, given that that’s only 2months shy of 2years. Sigh.

Then it dawned on me. This guy’s been sitting in jail since July 1st 2009. That’s just about 6months/180days to the date. So I mention that to the jury and then follow that up with – I wonder if that is considered time served? There’s a slight buzz in the room at the revelation. I send a note to the judge to ask if that’s the case. I then try to rationalize that he only had to complete another 14months to hit a 2year sentence. I asked her if she’d be more comfortable sentencing him to 2years knowing he’d already served 6months? She said she wouldn’t. Shit.

I then had a thought that I spoke out before I even really crafted it into a complete sentences – that’s awfully damn convenient that the defense is asking us to take mercy on this guy and give him the minimum sentence which would have this guy out of jail before Christmas. It almost sounds like they are working the system. This guy might be unintelligent, but I do believe he has become a true master at his craft and we know it’s not being a good thief. It’s impressive really. That all that fancy footwork has played into 2 people out of 12 feeling sympathy towards an admitted repeat offender who said in open court he knew what his other options were outside of stealing and just, plain and simple, had zero desire utilize those options. That he thought he could get away with stealing from Fiesta and it was only when he was caught and knew he was in serious trouble that he felt any sense of quote/unquote – remorse. He was only sorry when he was caught and knew that his jury luck and sympathy vote is wearing thin. Man… this guy. Impressive.

After a few people try and convince the one opposing woman that she was wrong, I realized that there had to be something that made sense to her to bring her to the consensus of the majority of the other jurors. It was in that moment that another juror said flippantly – it’s not like he is going to serve all 24months. They never do. At least by sentencing him to 24months, we know he will stay in longer than he has previously, and really I think that everyone agrees that that is the ultimate objective here.

That sparks speculation of how long he would actually have to serve. Once the idea was planted, you could see that the one opposing woman was wavering from her unrelenting opposition.

The guy who had run the math and come up with 22months speaks up again driving home that the average of what everyone wanted was less than 2years which should satisfy everyone. We were still waiting for the response back from the judge on whether the time the guy had already spent in jail would be considered as time served when the gay guy says – ok, I will agree to 22months and no monetary fee. He looked at the opposing woman and she said, out of nowhere – You know, I can live with that. What the hell? Did we really just come to a decision?! Too easy? Maybe not!

To which I immediately jump in and say, can we all agree to that? As everyone is nodding in agreement, I follow that up with – So no matter what response comes back from the judge on time served, we are all saying we agree to 22months and no fine, right?

Everyone again nods. Holy shit… the impossible has just happened.

I grabbed the foreman paper and quickly wrote in the appropriate slots – 22months and zero monetary fine. I sign it – illegibly of course – and just as the bailiff returns with the answer to our question about time served and before I can even read it, I shove the paper into his hand and say – we’ve made a decision. Although we’d all agreed that no matter what the answer was to time served, we would not change our sentencing verdict, but I would be damned if I was running the risk of having to spend a minute longer with these people.

As the bailiff disappeared, the room wanted to know what the response was to time served. As I folded the paper in half, without looking at it, I said it’s really rather irrelevant to anything at this point anyhow, so why bother to know? And let me tell you, that statement as simple and innocent as I thought it was damn near started WWIII in that tiny room. The one original opposing woman and the gay guy just about came unglued insisting on knowing what it said. Ah hell… I hope this isn’t going to cause some dramatic backlash…

So I open it, on the sole premise of self preservation given that the woman and gay guy were starting to obviously doubt their decision of the 22month sentence and I thought I might get jumped in the parking lot if I didn’t read it, I read it.

Those 6months were considered time served. I was right. That revelation really only confirmed that this guy was pretty damn brilliant at working the system. He really would have been out before Christmas. There was some discussion about how he should have had been given the max sentence and opposition from the 2 really starting to show signs that they were manhandled in that jury room by a select few people to push them to side with the majority. Ha… I enjoyed that, slightly. Ok let’s be real… a lot!

They call us back to the jury box and we all file in, except I now sit in jury chair one, indicating that I was the foreman. The states attorney looked at me and cracked a smirk so as to say he was not in the least bit shocked that I was selected as the foreman. The sentencing paper was passed back to me and I read the verdict. The judge then asked each juror, one-by-one, if this was their sentencing verdict. I really thought that when it got to the one woman, she would have something more to contribute to her response besides, yes. She didn’t. Thank God. We were then dismissed back to the jury room to be debriefed and to chat with the states attorney and judge if we so chose to. As the foreman, the judge generally wants to speak with the foreman after the trial so I hung around for a bit after they thanked us for our service and excused the jurors.

The judge comes in and as suspected, wanted to chat with me. He had some really funny things to say about this guy and that he thought we made the best decision we could. He was pretty flabbergasted that we were able to come to an agreed 22month sentence with 2 strongly opposed jurors. It was at that point that I noticed that the gay guy had hung around to chat with the states attorney.

And here’s where it gets a little more interesting…
The states attorney comes in and starts telling us all the stuff he couldn’t say during the trial. For instance, the state knew of over 15 guilty theft convictions for this guy in the state of Texas alone. They couldn’t present all of those during the trial due to some kind of evidence chain. Each piece of evidence has to be approved and submitted. If it does not go through that process, even though those guilty offenses are known and on record, they cannot offer those to the jury in any capacity. The exception on that is if the defendant speaks about other offenses on the stand, ones that weren’t entered into evidence for whatever reason can then be probed and investigated further. Like in this trial, when the states attorney asked the defendant if he’d had charges in other states for theft, he admitted to one – the one in Georgia. Once he admitted to that, the states attorney could ask him more in-depth as to that case without the risk of being objected. The states attorney said he was shocked the defendant admitted to that at all as he didn’t have to. I chuckled… not so smart are ya?

As the states attorney is telling us that he was extremely pleased with the sentencing verdict, it most likely won’t matter. In the matter of theft, there is no sliding scale as to increased punishment for repeat offenders. The max this guy could ever really get is 2years. Which, when you think about it, is kinda bullshit given that this sentencing has done jack to “rehabilitate” this guy. The states attorney said – hopefully he’ll do something more dramatic to include drugs or a weapon in the future so that they press deeper charges. And to that, I laughed hard – the kind of uncontrollable laugh where you didn’t expect it and then there you are… in tears.

It’s like – Wait what? You want him to put a weapon to someone or steal drugs so the state can REALLY punish him? Laugh out loud. How damn backwards is that? I liked it.

Then the states attorney tells us why they even went to jury selection in the first place. And this was a doosey. It wasn’t until the day of trial that the state knew for a fact that their one witness to the whole crime and essentially their entire case that he’d show up to testify. When the crime happened, this guy worked for Fiesta. Once they were pushed into trial, he’d been transferred to a subsidiary company within Fiesta. It took the state a bit to track him down and have him commit to showing up for trial.

Now, that being said, if that witness for the state had not appeared in court to testify on the day of trail, the state could not have proved without a reasonable doubt that this guy was even guilty. That meant that the defendant would have been found not guilty by default and the state would not be able to be retried him for this crime again. Now, that’s impressive while also pretty backwards.

So it was the stance of the defense that they wait until the day of trial to see if this witness showed up. When he did – bright and early – the defense attorney had no choice but to change the plea to guilty and move the jury right to the punishment sentencing. We as the jury had no knowledge of this while we were sentencing the guy. If I had known, I would have sat in that jury room for 100 days unrelenting on a 2year sentence. But I can’t fault the guy or his defense attorney… work the system and use it’s weaknesses to your benefit. Didn’t work this time, but I’m sure it has many times before.

But what the defense attorney would have had us believe was that the defendant had had a change of heart. He’d be struck by his conscience. Which that’s what they were selling and that’s definitely NOT what I (or 9 other jurors for that matter) were buying. I didn’t know all the facts while sentencing; I just knew something was off.

The gay guy chimed in and asked how come this came to trial in the 1st place and why they couldn’t settle it out of court. The states attorney said they tried to keep it out of the courtroom by offering this guy a 1year punishment and he had turned it down. While that riled up the gay guy thinking that if that’s what the state was going to offer, we were too harsh. Too late, friend. I had to laugh at that too. But it’s common knowledge that to settle outside of court, the punishment is less severe.

Bottom line, the defendant thought he would sit in jail for 6months and if the witness showed up, it was most likely (based on his past experience) that he’d get the minimum punishment of 180days and the time it took to get him to trail would be time served and he’d be out that day – more-or-less. Best scenario for him was to hope the witness didn’t show up and be found innocent due to lack of evidence.

The really funny part of it all was that had he accepted the 1year offered by the state, he’d probably have been out in 8 or 9 months. That would have had him sitting in jail for another 2-3 months max. Instead he played roulette with a jury hoping the marble would land on sympathy (yet again) and he could cash out and call it a day. Not quite. He’d be serving at least another 10-11months at a minimum of the 16months he had remaining on our 22month verdict. That I found funny. Not maniacally funny, but just funny how the system works and how well these criminals know how to use it.

I was on my way back to work before noon. Another jury duty down… another time selected to serve on a jury… another foreman title under my belt… and the knowledge that no matter when I get called to jury duty, should my number be selected to move to a district courtroom, I will be selected to serve. You know the government doesn’t do anything efficiently or effectively, however keeping notes on jurors is done impeccably. Of course that would be the case. How could I get screwed repeatedly if they didn’t?

At the end of it all, I felt neither civic or like I’d fulfilled my duty.