Not Exactly 12 Angry Men

It was more like 3 confused men and 3 confused women. I was on a jury in the County Court at Law #2 in Williamson County, Texas. Since it was a county court, it had 6 instead of 12 members. This is like my tenth time to be called for jury duty, and the 3rd time Ive actually been selected. What have I done to deserve this? Don't answer that!!!

This time I was on a family violence case. It was a 21 year old guy and an 18 year old girl who were common law married. Get this, they had 3 kids when it happened in August of '03. They now have 4 kids, and she's going to turn 20 on Halloween Day. We acquitted him, because there was a "reasonable doubt." The girl said one thing on the day and another thing on the stand. They did not put her written statement into evidence from the day it happened. The only thing we had was her testimony today and the cop's. Anyway, she took the stand and took the 5th. Yes, she took the 5th amendment! She was afraid that she would be prosecuted for perjury or lying to a police officer. She had a court-appointed attorney who advised her to take the 5th. So, the prosecutor had to find her to get her served a subpoena, then she gets to the stand and takes the 5th. They rush us out of the courtroom while they all argue about it. So, when we return she's still on the stand, and is now willing to testify, because she has been given immunity from prosecution for perjury. Which I think she proceeded to commit, but was immune from prosecution. Anyway, there was story A and story B. When it happened she refused any treatment or even examination by EMS, so there was no medical type evidence of her injuries. There were some photos of scratches on her arms and one on her neck, but she says she doesn't remember how that happened. She says she punched the guy in the nose causing him a bloody nose (I believe this part), and that the blood on the floor and the walls is from that. It actually seems more plausible than blood from her scratches. Anyway, it was VERY confusing, and so we had reasonable doubt. After it was over and we had acquitted him, we find out that he is already in prison for bank robbery. He was the guy that was holding up banks in Cedar Park. He had held up several and gotten away with it for a while. They had to get him out of prison to come stand trial on this charge. He has other charges pending on Family Violence. The judge came to us afterward and said that if he had heard the case he would have done the same thing. He just felt there was reasonable doubt.

It's been quite a couple of days! That makes the 3rd time I've been on a jury, and the first time that I was jury foreman. What an honor.