35 Wild Things Said During Jury Deliberations That Left Others Totally Speechless

Being interviewed for a jury. One of the older women spoke and said she was French and didn’t really understand English and asked to be excused. Judge asked her how long she had lived in America and she said 25 years. Judge told her to sit down.

I was a juror in a double homicide, double attempted homicide, gang enhancement, firearm enhancement, two defendants, all circumstantial evidence. The presentation of the case went on for 3 months. I was really worried about how deliberations would go…and everyone was beyond fantastic. A diverse, thoughtful, considerate group of people who took their duty seriously and followed the law. The wildest part was trying to reconstruct the movement of the perpetrators and getaway driver, based on security camera footage from multiple cameras. We had a giant map on the wall. Then, we had post its showing the time on the camera and the correct time at each camera location. Then, we had different colored yarn to trace the path of each thing. We truly became the It’s Always Sunny meme where Charlie has the red yard and the map.

I sat on Federal Grand Jury.

The Jury Foreman wanted to indict everyone (and I quote) "so they can prove their innocence in court".

He very clearly did not understand anything about the American judicial system.

“Halfway through deliberations someone goes, ‘I just feel like he looks guilty.’ No evidence, no reasoning — just vibes. Meanwhile we’ve got timelines, testimonies, and actual facts on the table… but sure, let’s consult your psychic abilities, Karen.”

Wild how fast ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ turns into ‘beyond a reasonable vibe.’.

The dumbest thing I saw was done by the judge.

As they were interviewing jurors and the defendant is sitting there with a gang of friends, the judge started using the jurors last names in calling them. So the defendant and his friends could find any of the jurors and where they lived easily.

“I don’t think it’s wrong to steal copper wiring”. I was jury foreman, and it took a day to change this jurors mind.

A couple jurors attempted to infer the defendent wasn't guilty of aggravated robbery because he was on d***s. That was quashed pretty quickly.

Someone was convinced that notarizing meant that the contents of a document were all true. They didn’t understand that a notary can just be like, your neighbor with no background in law or criminal justice, who does it as a side hustle. In this case the defendant wrote a letter saying the crack rocks did not belong to her, and got someone to notarize it, and the juror thought that made it an open and shut case.

I was a juror with this old lady (for 26 days over the course of a year). One day she came up to me and said "you're such a handsome young man, but you need to shave your beard. It makes you look like one of those t****rists."

I'm middle eastern, but I look like I'm from the midwest. I just smiled and tried not to laugh. Old people accidentally being racist is kinda funny.

It was federal grand jury so we saw lots of cases. So another time... after hearing testimony from a current inmate who was African-American she went up to the only two African-American jurors and said "he has such a great smile and is so charming... he shoulda gone into the NFL instead of going to prison. ".

It wasn’t even in court yet, I can’t think of the proper name. Not petit jury. ANYWAYS a dude was questioning the victim about her residency and kept saying there was absolutely no way there were townhouses where she said they were…. It was unhinged, like dude, she lives there she knows what kind of building she lives in…

It was made worse that it was a stalking/harassment case and his questions were just making her super uncomfortable to the point of tears so we had to take a break….

The only time I've served on a jury, we saw exactly one case, and it was such a slam-dunk we didn't even sit down in the jury room. Dumbshit didn't tell his lawyer that he'd looked directly into a security camera while committing his crime.

I have been on about 6 or 7 juries, mostly very minor cases One of the jurors was a naturalized US citizen who worked for the post office. Her understanding of bureaucratic detail was poor. She thought she was going to get the daily jury pay for every hour, not for the whole day. But as a federal employee, she was getting her normal pay,, so she wasn't getting any more pay from the jury anyway. She really didn't understand what was going on. Fortunately she was one of the alternates and so didn't participate in the final deliberations.

In another case, two jurors were both Cantonese speakers and spent a lot of time talking to each other in Cantonese. We had no way of knowing what they were really saying about the trial to each other.

In another case there was a kind of crazy woman on the jury. She even once ran out of the jury room while we were deliberating our verdict and the staff had to retrieve her. All the rest of the jurors had already decided on their verdicts but w without her vote, the final verdict wouldn't be valid. We finally convinced her to go along with the others so we could go home!

The defendant, while under oath (obviously) admitted she had committed the crime. After that the judge sent us to the jury room to deliberate. One of the jurors outright said she didn't think the defendant was guilty despite her pretty much confessing in front of everyone in the courtroom. We just stared at her for a few minutes before the foreman asked her to repeat herself. She did so and he reminded her that the defendant freely admitted her crime. As it is we were not required to render a unanimous verdict in this case and the rest of us voted "guilty".

A guy almost got the group to agree on a 3 million dollar charge against an old man because he hit this chick's car, pretty much totaled it, and she wanted money in "damages."

It took me and one other juror to get the charge down as low as reasonable but still came out to $120,000.

Better than 3 mil I guess lol, that would have ruined his life. Over a car.

I have had the misfortune of being on a jury a couple of times. Both times we had people who were convinced that they could tell when someone was lying or not.