I just served on a jury that convicted a man of four separate charges including selling marijuana. This man has a fiancé and a toddler at home. He has a job and supports and his family. And now he’s probably going to jail. The jury’s verdict on whether or not he was selling marijuana was not unanimous. I was one of the jurors that voted not guilty on two of the charges.
However, I also volunteered to be the presiding juror. So when the jury finally came to the point where they had a strong enough majority to reach a verdict on all four counts, I marked guilty in four places, signed at the bottom of the verdict, carried this paper into the courtroom, handed it to the clerk, and verified for the judge that this was indeed our verdict and that two of the verdicts were unanimous, while two were not.
And the defendant sobbed with his head in his hands.
We went back into the jury room to verify for the judge the count of guilty and not guilty votes for each verdict. And one woman in the room, who had changed her vote earlier that morning, asked if she could change her vote back to not guilty. After we had already handed in our verdict, heard the judge read it out loud in the courtroom, and watched the defendant break down into tears, one juror admitted to having doubts about a guilty verdict. Her one vote, had she stuck with her original feelings, would have been enough to cause a mistrial on two of the charges.
But she waited to voice her doubts until it was too late, and there was nothing we could do. I don’t know how I managed, but I didn’t shed a tear until I got back home.
