Well, we couldn’t reach a unanimous decision. So we are a hung jury which equals a mistrial…and a waste of an entire week. I will absolutely NEVER put myself through this again. It was literally the week from hell. I don’t know how people do it when they are on a jury for a really big trial. I was so exhausted every night…and then I had to spend 2-3 hours working for my real job. And absolutely nothing was accomplished at home.

The case had to do with an illegal alien who was in prison for a felony. He came across something on the internet called the 10/5 Law. His mother was born in the United States and he was born in Mexico. The 10/5 Law says that a child born in another country is a US citizen if one of his/her parents lived in the US for 10 years prior to that child’s birth, 5 years of which had to be after the parent turned 14 years of age. This guy demanded a jury trial to prove he was a US citizen and shouldn’t have been deported 4 times previously. Not sure exactly why he wanted to do this since, as it turned out, this would not have allowed his release from prison. Who knows.

The reason I voted not guilty had to do with the lack of evidence presented by the prosecution. We were instructed to make our decisions based on the evidence presented, not our feelings about the defendant. The evidence was incomplete regarding dates and could neither prove nor disprove that his mother was here for the requisite amount of time. All the dates were subject to speculation in order to disprove the mother’s time in the US, and we were told not to rely on speculation. No one was willing to change his/her mind, so we were a hung jury.

As it turned out, this was unfortunate in that another trial will now need to be held. We found out after the fact that this guy is a real asshole. He’s been convicted of 12 felonies beginning when he was 13 years old! He’s now 44 and has spent probably at least half his life in jail. He also murdered someone but was not convicted because the only witness was afraid to testify. I still wouldn’t have changed my verdict, but I really hope he eventually gets convicted.

Some of us talked with both the prosecution and defense attorneys and told them what they needed to do to get a conviction or vice-versa. They really seemed to appreciate our comments. So now it’s up to the next group of jurors. I feel sorry for them and wish we could have reached a verdict. However, I still feel comfortable with my decision. Also, am grateful this guy won’t be out on the streets anytime soon.