alt Hacker NewsI was in a jury pool for a case where the DA was attempting to prosecute petty vandalism to pressure a young adult over a minor crime ($500 worth of graffiti) because they wanted cooperation on another larger crime.
It wasn't going anywhere. When I finally got called up to voir dir I explained that I thought the real crime was sequestering 300 people for a day over $500. I suggested we collect $2 from each person in the jury pool (far less than we paid for parking that day) and cover the alleged damages and not only be done for the day, but have achieved some real measure of justice.
Lets just say the judge didn't agree and I got let out of voir dir.
Replies
I wouldn’t want to live in a place where crimes below $1,000 go unpunished.
Having society (a group of unrelated jurors) to pay for the crimes of an individual (however minor you perceive them to be) is not justice. That's why you got kicked out.
I always try to be as bland as possible in voir dir so I can get in and maybe nullify.
$500 was the damages that they were caught doing. Not the total damages they caused. If every "empathetic" person volunteers to pay $2 every time someone wants graffiti on their property removed, regardless of how often graffiti keeps reappearing, then maybe the DA wouldn't feel a need to prosecute.
Brilliant! I'd get the pay per view just to see the judge's face when you made this proposal. Also you have balls of steel.
Hot take - the criminal should pay the jury if they're clearly guilty and wasting everyone's time. And the judge. And if they resisted arrest, the cost of the extra police work.
Jury duty is the single dumbest thing I have ever done in my adult life. Nobody wants to be there, and half the jurors were falling asleep. When we got to the deliberation room, everyone wanted to GTFO as quickly as possible and we just went by our feels. In the end, everyone loses. Millions of dollars wasted... on perception of justice. What a freaking joke.
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My experience has been the same. I was on a grand jury, so pre-indictment and no voir dire, and there were many BS cases like this. We returned "no true bill" on all of them, which made me really proud of my randomly-selected neighbors. Cops were trying to railroad so many people over subway fare evasion, upgrading stealing $2.50 from the MTA to felony drug charges. We didn't bite. I did remark that I would just give them the $2.50 rather than ruining some high school student's life. (Seriously, just take it out of my taxes. I'm happy to work to fund public transportation.)