Cleared after 35 years in jail!

[kennyc]

That's all I meant by profiling...

But still I'm thinking that the jury selection should be done by an independent third party (or the judge) without the defense/prosecution lawyers involved.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by kennyc

That's all I meant by profiling...

But still I'm thinking that the jury selection should be done by an independent third party (or the judge) without the defense/prosecution lawyers involved.

The ACLU would try to burn the buliding down. Its deemed to be a constitutional right to have a jury of peers, and the defense counsel wants just as much a shot at taking out jurors as the prosecution - if not moreso.

Though on the topic, i'll tell you an interesting story from a civil case i sat in on... the case was a simple personal injury suit. Man A and Man B were in a car together. Man A was driving and they were involved in an accident. Man B was injured and allegedly unable to work for 3 months. Leaving aside the facts of the case, which are a great story in and of themselves, the jury selection was the novel thing.
The counsel sat a jury that had everyone from a 19 year old skydiving instructor and a newly retired NASA astrophysicist. Both sides were sure that the retired NASA lady would take over the jury, name herself foreman. So they were very detailed with thier facts and figures in the short trial. Turns out, it was the 19 year old who was named foreman, but an informal straw poll of the the room as soon as they went in for deliberations.

[Nexutix]

Originally Posted by kennyc

I was totally apalled at the Tim Master's case but this is even more a travesty of justice!

BARTOW, Fla. — James Bain used a cell phone for the first time Thursday, calling his elderly mother to tell her he had been freed after 35 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit.

Mobile devices didn't exist in 1974, the year he was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping a 9-year-old boy and raping him in a nearby field.

Neither did the sophisticated DNA testing that officials more recently used to determine he could not have been the rapist.

"Nothing can replace the years Jamie has lost," said Seth Miller, a lawyer for the Florida Innocence Project, which helped Bain win freedom. "Today is a day of renewal."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34467096...me_and_courts/

The Movie "Conviction"! Yeah?