Had to serve last year and this guy we had convicted for rape had 6 previous convictions in which 2 included rape. Hes now serving life....
The last time I had served on a jury was just after the Rodney King beatings. It was a civil trial and this guy was trying to take advantage of the incident by suing 3 Oklahoma highway patrolmen for police bruatality. I won't go into detail, but this guy claimed that he lost an eye from the incident. But I knew something was up when he came to the courtroom representing himself without any council. He called all of these wacko witnesses and doctors to the stand that all looked like characters straight out of the show My Name Is Earl. Then after 5 days of this crap, the defense called a doctor up to the stand that totally reputiated 5 days of testimony. He showed proof that the dude lost his eye from a degenerative eye disease. Not by being beat by any cops. All of the witnesses the defense called up said this guy was drunk and raising hell and cussing out loud in a restauraunt. And the cops escorted him outside, and then he resisted arrest. Anyway, long story short, we deliberated for about 15 minutes..The only argument we had was one lady wanted to award him 1 dollar for all of his efforts..The rest of us said we're not giving him shit. So she ended up going along. After the verdict the judge called all of us jurors back to his chambers and told us this was one of the biggest waste of taxpayers money that he had seen in his court for some time. He said this guy had it in for the cops all along and had tried to do this same thing 3 times before in different incidents and failed to get any money. Sometimes I wish they would do like they do in parts of Europe and make people who are suing like this have to pay the defendents court costs if they lose...The courthouse would probably look like a ghostown if they did it.
