Could you serve on the jury...?

Could you serve on the jury of one of the highly publicized cases, i.e. Casey Anthony?

I read a news story today about Cindy Anthony's (Casey's mother, Caylee's grandmother) testimony about how she broke down on the stand today when the prosecutor played the recording of her 911 call reporting Caylee missing. This was after she had overheard Casey saying that she had been missing for over a month, and after she & her husband had retreived the car that "smelled like a dead body" from impound.

When I read that I realized that if I had said that I could be impartial listening to the evidence that I would have been lying to myself and the judge/lawyers. In my eyes, that woman is guilty as the day is long and there is no explanation that her lawyers or she could possibly give that would mitigate those circumstances. I'll give you that the evidence is circumstantial, but sometimes that's enough to tell the whole story. Of course, this is what is being presented by the Prosecutors so I'm not basing my opinion on anything that was decided in the court of public opinion. Does that still count? I'm not really sure.

There are other cases where I truly do think that I could be impartial and look at the evidence as presented by the Prosecution and Defense. In fact, I think I could do that with most cases. I've just never had the chance, even though I would actually love to serve on a jury!

I'm not sure why this one hits me the way it does. I'm not a parent, I'm not close to any small children. Maybe it's because my sister's granddaughter is named Kaylee and my father's granddaughter is named Kaylie (both are through marriage) so I associate them with Caylee?

Could you do it? Are there cases (specific or certain type) that you couldn't?

[quote=Natalie_ca;3072190]I've never been selected for jury duty, and if I ever am I will tell them that I'm too opinionated and that having me on the panel may end with a hung jury if I am the only hold out.[\\quote]

That would likely get you tossed by the Prosecution, if not the Judge! I had a friend who was called up for Jury Duty and he told them that he's an "Equal Opportunity Racist" - he hates everyone. He was dismissed.

I have to say that on the scale of evil (what was that show called???) I don't think she's nearly as evil as Susan Smith. That woman planned it, did it with calculated forethought, and then tried to manipulate the police, the media, and the world to get away with it.

I don't think that Casey went to that extreme, although I do think that she felt that little Caylee was a burden and interfered with her life. I think it was likely an accident - she didn't mean to kill her that night, she just wanted to go clubbing more than she wanted to be a mother. Her alibi and finger pointing wasn't nearly as thought out as Susan Smith's. It was almost like she didn't miss the kid, why would anyone else? I just can't decide if she's mentally deficient or such a narcissist that she merged with a sociopath for a moment.

The problem also is that there are so many cop/CSI type shows that the average herp-derp thinks that there shouldn't be a conviction unless there is air-tight, DNA + eye witness evidence. People just can't think for themselves to connect the dots and see that sometimes circumstantial evidence is just as air-tight as DNA.

I, like many others here, read and watch entirely too much in the True Crime genre. That's partly why I never watched CSI - I watched the first part of the first show and got so mad because it was so far from the truth of real forensics that I turned it off before I threw something through my TV.

To me that's where being on the jury would really lead me. Was she just an idiot, was she a narcissist, or was she a sociopath? Or some combination thereof?

The defense is coming up with this outlandish story that her father & uncle (I think, def. her father) sexually molested her as a child so she found this hiding spot in the woods as a kid where she felt safe. So when Caylee drowned in the family swimming pool that's where she put her.

(Then where did the duct tape come from? You don't put tape on the head of a dead body - they aren't going to yell.)

I don't know if they're serious or if are setting it up for her so that if she does get convicted and especially if she gets the death penalty that her next set of attorneys can plead that she had an inadequate defense.