um i i personally have a lot of feelings about the way our judicial system is run but um yeah
really
i do not know i just uh i i do not know i have you ever been for called for jury duty
no i haven't have you
no i haven't and oh is that you
i am still here
oh okay uh a friend of mine was just called before and uh it's amazing the that they have to go through about four hundred people to get a a jury for this one case
good grief
because um there was everybody seemed to have some sort of bias
you know uh very hard to find um you know extremely um um yeah impartial people but anyway i think it would be interesting but um
yeah
impartial
how do you what do you think about the way it's run
well
well the you know on the suggested topic was to talk about whether uh verdicts had to be unanimous decisions
right
and i thought that was
that really got me to thinking you know and i think we really need them to be unanimous
um-hum
because
i'd hate to think that that you know if if i was charged with something that i was not guilty of that i got convicted on a you know seven to five verdict
yeah that's true that's a good point um aren't they supposed to be unanimous though now isn't that the way it is okay
you know
yeah they are i think they need to stay that way
yes i agree i do although i do not know i think the judge should be involved i really at this point i am not sure how it works but let's say that a jury decides somebody is guilty
yeah
and the judge disagrees
it it's not the judges final decision right it's the jury's
right it's absolutely up to the jury
see and and my feeling is this judge knows a whole i do not know i mean that's his job you know that and it seems like all he is is a mediator mediator of the whole thing
i know it
but then if if you give him too much power
you know that who knows i mean we got crooked cops
well that's true yep you're right there's crooked everybody
i know it
it's really scary because you know you see i do not know if you ever watch saw the movie Presumed Innocent did you see that oh my God it's fabulous if you ever can rent it or something
so
no i didn't
is it
i've been trying to and it's never there yes
really it's just great and it it's scary because it's just about that there are crooked cops and the whole case points to this one guy and you know he is innocent and um
that that kind of stuff ought to scar us to death i mean
yeah it does
and then you watch this guy go to jail for um i should not be telling you because you are going to want to see it
well i knot that he goes it it for the murder right
yeah and he goes to jail um
i just
and oh it's really scary
that would be awful
yeah but but then i also see um oh i do not know this one case here in Rochester where um we had a serial killer and they finally caught him and
it here he the guy had basically admitted to killing twelve girls yeah unbelievable and um
good grief
yet it was it was almost a type of thing where he almost wasn't guilty because they had this little flaw one piece of evidence
that's
that's what bothers me the technicalities and that's where i think the judge maybe ought to have more say you know
uh ah
yeah
right
i agree
because i can't believe that
that we can let the people off that we are letting off because you did not tell them this one statement before you took them to jail you know like
um-hum
right oh right or the whole the Marion Berry thing you know the the governor uh how they determined that he was um oh i do not know it was set up or something
yeah
it's just
i mean this guy is dealing drugs it's not set up he was just doing it yeah you know
i'm sorry
he was doing it entrapment i'm sorry you know
uh-huh i would love to be on a jury because i i do think it's fascinating i i i think it it's it's hard system i mean you are never going to get a right and a wrong you know it's just
there's no blacks and whites it's shades of gray
that that's right
yep
and i think i am like you i think it would be really fascinating i do not think i would want to be on a highly publicized case though i do not think i would like that at all
me either because it is tense for the jurors that were on this serial killing uh they couldn't read the newspaper they couldn't watch TV they couldn't talk about it and this went on for like six months
i'm sure
well you know they had uh a big drug trial in Roanoke Virginia a couple of years ago and my my husband was called for jury duty on that and he said that they had guards armed
um-hum
huh really
you know guards posted everywhere and he was really glad that he wasn't called because he said that this would have been too much
wow
yeah
so i wouldn't like that at all
oh my goodness
i like Judge Wapner type of thing
yeah a real simple uncomplicated thing you know
right like uh my dog bit the neighbor or something
we could start out small and work our way up
yeah exactly
so
but it's just it's scary because um there there's just so much that can go wrong that could let an innocent person be convicted or a guilty person have them let go
absolutely that the nuances
and
yeah and um
i do not know i guess it's it i do not know a lot about the terms but a hung jury is that when the it's not completely unanimous
that
yeah you know it would be split one way or another and and that ends in a mistrial
oh so what happens nothing
so they have to retry them they have to bring in a whole new jury they have to absolutely start over again
oh
oh my God
so and i do not know how many times you can
have a hung jury i do not know if they the i don't guess they have to go back to
um-hum
trial i guess you know they could drop the charges if they didn't think they'd ever convict him
um-hum
did you see Sixty Minutes by any chance on um
i guess it was this past Sunday night they showed a guy who um he's a lawyer and what he's like known for now is getting men um
no i didn't
uh-hum
off of charges of killing their wives or their ex-wives yeah isn't that lovely so there's this guy um i forget what his name is and he is a lawyer someplace and he's gotten so far about four or five
oh that's nice
men um free of the charge one guy went in stabbed his ex-wife to death because she was sleeping with another guy i mean ex-wife you know we're talking and
oh my gosh yeah well
and um
he got them off on the basis that he went temporarily insane
yeah i'll bet he did
right temporally insane that she provoked this in him because he was so madly in love with her that seeing you know this other man with her just drove him crazy
oh
and it was her fault that he killed her
yeah exactly it was her fault her uh they interviewed her parents it was crazy so now he has to serve like six months in a rehab center and
sure
and get psychiatric treatment
exactly
