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The Juror who says one thing in Voir Dire and says something else during deliberation can be charged and convicted of perjury. Perjury is a felony. If the judge so wishes that same juror can also be charged with contempt of court.

ELB wrote: Fri Aug 30, 2019 10:21 am

ScottDLS wrote: Thu Aug 29, 2019 11:46 pm

I see what you are saying, but seems like a very dangerous and slippery slope. During voir dire the prospective jurors are often being asked to speculate...”Would you be able to? Could you consider?” Ah yes, could, woulda, should, except when I saw your cruddy facts Mr Prosecutor and they triggered my SJW instincts. The integrity of the jury system would be seriously at risk if jurors could be punished for their decisions by holding that they were contrary to their answers during voir dire. Massive 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment issues at play here IMO.

But having "cruddy facts" is not the situation here. If a prosecutor can't prove his case beyond reasonable doubt, that's a decision the jury is supposed to make. But in this case it appears to me the jurors were asked if the defendant was convicted, could they support the punishment the law provides. If a juror says yes in voir dire but then indicates in deliberation he lied, then the integrity of the justice system is most definitely compromised.

I cannot attribute motivation to the juror I was involved with. I just know it's bad.

• Judge: (paraphrasing) Are you able to consider the full range of possible sentences, which, in this case, includes the possibility of life in prison?

Every juror that was empaneled indicated an affirmative answer to that question. Then one of them changed their answer during sentence deliberation.

ELB wrote: Fri Aug 30, 2019 10:21 am

ScottDLS wrote: Thu Aug 29, 2019 11:46 pm

I see what you are saying, but seems like a very dangerous and slippery slope. During voir dire the prospective jurors are often being asked to speculate...”Would you be able to? Could you consider?” Ah yes, could, woulda, should, except when I saw your cruddy facts Mr Prosecutor and they triggered my SJW instincts. The integrity of the jury system would be seriously at risk if jurors could be punished for their decisions by holding that they were contrary to their answers during voir dire. Massive 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment issues at play here IMO.

But having "cruddy facts" is not the situation here. If a prosecutor can't prove his case beyond reasonable doubt, that's a decision the jury is supposed to make. But in this case it appears to me the jurors were asked if the defendant was convicted, could they support the punishment the law provides. If a juror says yes in voir dire but then indicates in deliberation he lied, then the integrity of the justice system is most definitely compromised.

Indicates in deliberations that he lied? The voir dire questions are speculative. Could you convict if the facts are established? Yes. OK you hung the jury. Now the prosecutor is going to charge you with lying because of what you said in deliberations? The jury is to establish the facts. ALL the members in a criminal trial. SJW says he doesn’t think the facts were strong enough to warrant not giving the bad guy another chance. Questions in voir dire about how you are going to deliberate in a jury during can not be actionable. Maybe if you lied about a fact....are you a convicted robber? Are you a citizen? Otherwise prosecutors could intimidate jurors who don’t come to the “right” outcome. There is the whole principle of jury nullification in which the jury ignores clear evidence and acquits anyway. It is not particularly desirable, but long standing constitutional interpretation says it is not reversible in the case of an acquittal.

RoyGBiv wrote: Fri Aug 30, 2019 10:36 am

ELB wrote: Fri Aug 30, 2019 10:21 am

ScottDLS wrote: Thu Aug 29, 2019 11:46 pm

I see what you are saying, but seems like a very dangerous and slippery slope. During voir dire the prospective jurors are often being asked to speculate...”Would you be able to? Could you consider?” Ah yes, could, woulda, should, except when I saw your cruddy facts Mr Prosecutor and they triggered my SJW instincts. The integrity of the jury system would be seriously at risk if jurors could be punished for their decisions by holding that they were contrary to their answers during voir dire. Massive 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendment issues at play here IMO.

But having "cruddy facts" is not the situation here. If a prosecutor can't prove his case beyond reasonable doubt, that's a decision the jury is supposed to make. But in this case it appears to me the jurors were asked if the defendant was convicted, could they support the punishment the law provides. If a juror says yes in voir dire but then indicates in deliberation he lied, then the integrity of the justice system is most definitely compromised.

I cannot attribute motivation to the juror I was involved with. I just know it's bad.

• Judge: (paraphrasing) Are you able to consider the full range of possible sentences, which, in this case, includes the possibility of life in prison?

Every juror that was empaneled indicated an affirmative answer to that question. Then one of them changed their answer during sentence deliberation.

Too bad for the prosecution. The question is speculative. Yes I could. OK when I got in deliberations I realized I couldn’t. Or I DID consider the the full range and realized they were all outrageous after further thought. This is the concern of all capital case prosecutions. Maybe the juror just can’t bring themselves to order someone put to death. Maybe they thought they could and realized they couldn’t. If you are going to threaten a juror with sanctions for trying the facts or determining the penalty which is legally to be determined by the juror, then we might as well repeal the sixth amendment.

abom2 wrote: Fri Aug 30, 2019 7:15 am We no longer build walls around our cities and towns to exclude those that do not follow the communities laws, we build walled enclosures to confine them away from us.

This is an EXCELLENT point, and I had never considered it before. There is one small flaw in it though..... When we used to banish someone from inside the walls, they were free to move on and enter another walled city and victimize those people until they were banished again from that town. And on and on. We solved this problem by hanging them for being repeat offenders. I’m not suggesting that hanging is an appropriate response to purse-snatching, but it is entertaining to contemplate.

The Annoyed Man wrote: Fri Aug 30, 2019 12:29 pm

abom2 wrote: Fri Aug 30, 2019 7:15 am We no longer build walls around our cities and towns to exclude those that do not follow the communities laws, we build walled enclosures to confine them away from us.

This is an EXCELLENT point, and I had never considered it before. There is one small flaw in it though..... When we used to banish someone from inside the walls, they were free to move on and enter another walled city and victimize those people until they were banished again from that town. And on and on. We solved this problem by hanging them for being repeat offenders. I’m not suggesting that hanging is an appropriate response to purse-snatching, but it is entertaining to contemplate.

And could possibly align itself fairly close to punishments in certain regions of the world. Considering that this individual is a repeat offender. In some regions for the first theft he could have lost a hand. The drugs would have cost him his life. He had multiple drug convictions, most for manufacturing and distribution. Each of these could involve the sentence of death in the regions I am thinking of. Unsure of how these regions would handle Aggravated Assault and then the Aggravated Theft we convicted him of.

I feel multiple problems with this individual would have resulted in an extremely harsh and permanent solution. Plus less expensive.