Jury Duty - tell me about the case you judged

[Anonymous]

I was called to serve on a child sexual abuse case. I asked not to be chosen as I could not start from a place where I believed the defendant was innocent until proven guilty. The kid was going to testify too, and I didn't think I could take hearing that.

[Anonymous]

I served on a Sexual Abuse case. It is an intense experience and it was very affecting. I am still affected by it and it was many months ago. We convicted a good man of a very bad crime and the family was ruined over this, but we had to remember that it wasn't "our" fault that it was ruined. The law rides a very fine line and sometimes what is best is not always what is legal. It is just a different way of thinking about things than ever before. You have to look at things as very right or wrong with no shades of grey. There were MANY shades of grey in this case. I was shaking when we made a decision. It was very difficult.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was called to serve on a child sexual abuse case. I asked not to be chosen as I could not start from a place where I believed the defendant was innocent until proven guilty. The kid was going to testify too, and I didn't think I could take hearing that.

How odd you posted at the same time as me....I am the other 9:13!

It was good that you declined. You really have to have an open mind for these things when you're there. It's just not what you think it will be. When they told us what the case was you look at the man and think "Oh, he's a bad person," but then you listen to a couple of days of testimony and you talk to a bunch of other people about it at length and you realize that it's just not like you expect it to be. Everything was different and everything was upsetting. Yes, it is difficult to hear the children testify. These children *love* their Father. What was worse was that everyone on the Jury admitted that the Mother seemed very sketchy and the Father probably needed counseling more than Jail and that the children were better off with him. Sounds crazy, huh? We thought a man convicted of Sexual Abuse should have his children instead of their Mother (not that this was part of our verdict or anything, it was just in conversation). But, it is completely true. This wasn't a man that I think shouldn't go to swimming pools or have Trick or Treaters at his home. He's just not dangerous. Not even to his own children. It was this weird isolated incident with a very odd set of circumstances, but when it came down to it, the question was "did it happen or not?" and it did, so we convicted.