I was a juror in a recent criminal offence. In this case, one man was convicted of armed robbery. The person robbed was the prosecution, and we were trying one one of the three robbers. The witness’ story was in doubt. It was an armed robbery that happened in an apartment complex. No specific times were given, so we’re assuming all this happened around 6ish PM. The story included shots fired (3). It was a sole witness, and the only other prosecution evidence is from the reporting officer which said he asked the same question 3 months later, and he said the same thing. The defense represented himself.

In the jury room, we found reasonable doubt that what he was saying was true. There was absolutely no evidence to support what he was saying was true. No reports of shots fired, no reports of shell casings, or bullet holes. and the fact that one person was able to run away from three guns pointed point blank at him just didn’t strike me as a plausible story, and 8 of the 12 thought the same thing as I did. The four that thought he was guilty were biased by “he never said he didn’t do it”.. which to me was saying he is guilty until proven innocent.

He was found guilty on one thing… in the judges instructions, it said his statement had to be held as truth unless he was impeached, and the defense didn’t do a good job defending himself.

So, we prosecuted and found guilty someone from the one one witness rule. We prosecuted based on a story that none of us in the jury room believed to be fully truthful. We all thought something happened, but we’re not sure that’s exactly how it went down, or if even guns were truthfully involved.

I had to put myself int he defendants shoes. What if you stopped the case before it began, and just replaced myself with him… would it be enough evidence to convict a truly innocent person? What if my neighbor had said I did the same thing to me as the prosecution just because he didn’t like me? If the one witness rule is law, then could I send anyone to jail that I want just by making a false statement and repeating it?

Proof of the evil direction the USSA has taken.

You see where I’m going with this?

By the very logical definition, one man’s word against another alone is NOT “proof beyond reasonable doubt” without corroborating evidence.

Talk about kangaroo courts.

Bottom line: The jurors struck are concerned about the possibility of convicting an innocent person. The prosecutors who ask the question are not.

Especially considering in the more serious cases that 99% of the time the jury ends up scratching their heads and wondering, “Hey, why are they calling another witness? I thought he said…”

OK, even as I type this, I’m thinking “Yes, sometimes they get to strike someone for an unstated and/or illegitmate reason because the guy was honest”.

From an intellectual standpoint I think I agree with you, but in the long run I don’t know it makes much difference.

(I almost considered not submitting this since I’m waffling back and forth, but hey – I don’t want to waste the 30 seconds I spent thinking about/typing this…)

It’s hard to follow all these special Texas rules.

You don’t think that taking advantage of your bosses’ (the jurors) lack of rhetorical savvy is unfair to them? Bad servant. Bad.

There’s a huge difference between implicitly committing a juror to convict on the testimony of less than one witness (contrary to Deut. 19:15, by the way, which might implicate Article 1 Section 4 of the Texas constitution), and committing a juror to follow the full range of punishment.

The courts got the one-witness question rule wrong. It should be an improper commitment question because it injects facts (one witness) beyond those necessary to determine whether the juror can follow the law. One witness or one hundred, the law is that the juror must convict if he finds proof BRD.