I found the process reassuring.
I sat on a case where a niece accused her uncle of molesting her some 25 years earlier, when she was a small child.
The uncle seemed like a creep. Just looking at him, I didn’t like him, and my fellow jurors expressed similar thoughts. He seemed like the type of guy who would be a child molester.
But the niece’s testimony was unbelievable, and not one witness (mostly her cousins and family members) corroborated her story. In fact, they outright refuted almost everything she said.
When we deliberated, it was hard not to take her side, because everybody wants to help a damsel in distress. And everybody hates child molesters. I dare say we wanted to find the uncle guilty.
However, we’d been given clear instructions from the judge, and we had to ignore our opinions in favor of the evidence.
After about two hours of deliberation, we found the guy not guilty.
I was proud of us, because even though we didn’t like the uncle, we didn’t let our personal feelings cloud our judgement. We made a decision based on facts, not emotions.
After the trial, the judge invited us jurors to stay in the courtroom to get details of the case that we weren’t previously allowed to hear.
It turns out, the niece was a complete whack job. She’d previously sued her family for forcing her to partake in Satanic rituals, where she claims she was made to sacrifice an unknown infant and throw it in a fire.
She’d also destroyed the uncle’s life with her accusations. She told people at his work he was a child molester. One day, some coworkers cornered him and threw him down a stairwell.
He broke his arm and shoulder, and was eventually fired under mysterious circumstances. After that, he struggled to find work in his small town, because he’d become a pariah. Which was why he looked creepy to us.
It’s hard not to look creepy when your best suit is a cheap polyester deal that obviously came from Goodwill, and you wear Napoleon Dynamite glasses. But how are you supposed to dress better when you can’t find a job and don’t make any money?
Based on what the judge and both lawyers told us, we made the right choice in our verdict. That was supremely reassuring, because a room full of strangers came together and meted out proper justice. We ignored preconceived notions and followed the law.
Read other answers by Ross Trittipo on Quora:
- What behavior considered extremely rude in the US would be considered normal in other countries?
- What is your favorite luxury item?
- What do you have for dinner in your country?
from Quora http://ift.tt/2lD0U9w
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