Defending People

the art and science of criminal defense trial lawyering

Picked a Jury Today

DWI — total refusal with no accident, but driving facts include alleged flight from the police (a felony, with which he would undoubtedly have been charged if the cop were not making it up).

Unusual jury demographics for Harris County:

  • A 29-year-old hispanic male waste company driver;
  • A 50-year-old black female loan closing manager;
  • A 63-year-old retired white lady from Brooklyn;
  • A 42-year-old black female teacher’s aide;
  • A 28-year-old black club manager; and
  • A 49-year-old black FedEx driver.

If the State can convince these six that my client is guilty of DWI, he might just be.

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This entry was posted by Mark Bennett on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 12:19 am and is filed under DWI, jury. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

About The Author

Mark Bennett
Mark Bennett got his letter of marque from the Supreme Court of Texas in May 1995. He is famous for having no sense of humor when it comes to totalitarianism.

Comments

2 Responses to “Picked a Jury Today”

  1. near the end says:
    12 February 2008 at 3:03 am

    If a prosecutor had made that comment about the make up of the jury they would be racist. I guess you think that 4 black jurors, a hispanic and a white juror cannot vote guilty because of ??????

    Reply
  2. Mark Bennett says:
    12 February 2008 at 3:29 am

    Thanks for commenting, NTE (the end of what? should we repent?).

    You misunderstand. These six people absolutely could, and indeed might, vote guilty — it’s a close case — but if they do so I’m fairly comfortable that it’ll be only after they’ve actually put the government to its burden and made it do its job, rather than because they’re scared and have been suckered into thinking that the government is there to protect them, and is therefore most always right. In other words, if they convict, I’ll be reasonably certain that they’ve fulfilled their oaths as jurors.

    Historically, the criminal justice system has been extremely unfair and unkind (to put it mildly) to African-Americans. If you don’t agree with that principle, you clearly live in a cave and aren’t familiar with American History.

    So these folks aren’t likely to cut the Harris County DA’s Office any slack. Which is exactly why a jury of this composition looks better to me than it should to a prosecutor.

    Reply

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