Jury Duty

I just finished up my most recent involuntary obligation of jury duty, and actually ended up on the jury for one case after being excused from another case earlier in the court term.  I was excused for reasons that weren't mentioned because it was during the phase of jury selection where the attorneys can excuse people without having to give a reason.  Since the case I actually served on a jury for is over, I can talk about it.

It was a criminal trial involving the sale of cocaine.  With the way criminal cases work, burden of proof is on the prosecution, and the jury has to figure out beyond a reasonable doubt if the defendant is guilty, otherwise they're innocent.  Between a really poor defense and some evidence from the prosecution that was iffy at best, we couldn't say beyond a reasonable doubt that the guy was guilty.

It left all of us on the jury with more questions than anything else.  Why wasn't the wire transmission recorded?  Why were there 7 months between the alleged incident and the arrest being made?  Why was so much of the video that the prosecution was depending on for evidence missing?  Why were we first told not to rely on the informant's testimony, but then later told to take it into consideration?  Why did the suspect in the picture (which was a still from the video) look nothing like the defendant?  Why did phone records show that no calls had been made or received by the number that the audio recording said they called to set up the drug deal in an entire three day period surrounding the date in question?  How did the officers know that the guy their informant talked to on the phone was indeed the guy they charged with the crime?

All those inconsistencies really hurt the prosecution's case.  But still, why did the defense not even try to establish an alibi for the accused?  At least call him to the stand and ask the classic "where were you at this date and time" question.

All the things that would have answered a few of those questions for us were settled while we were ordered into the jury room where we can't hear anything happening in the court.  At one point the prosecution even mentioned wanting to move to declare a mistrial, but the ensuing argument was also settled with us in the jury room.

Overall, the legal system is weird.