2011.05.20 On a Scale of 1 to 10 How do you Feel About this Jury?

seeing_eye said:

I think you may have hit on an eye-opener here. I've wondered about this ever since Jay Leno started the feature on his show, "The Jaywalkers." They're mostly college students and, from their answers to Jay's questions, one would think they all lived in caves! Another indication of the "dumbing of America" is our experiences whenever we deal with the average employee in a large corporation. It's pretty obvious to me the problem is not a lack of intelligence, but is a lack of education. I don't know how this problem will ever be solved since our current uneducated students are our future teachers! The Pinellas 12 I think are just further proof of this condition in our country. (Is it the same in the world?)

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bbm

Kinda ironic because the foreperson is a high school teacher, doing his on-line studies for a master's degree from his hotel room, and he was the one who seemed to have convinced the jurors to go with a not guilty verdict. He was supposedly well-educated, but yet he led the jurors down the wrong path. He coulda told any juror worried about cruises, deadlines, etc. to step out of the picture and let an alternate step in so that they could go through to the penalty phase. So either any dumb bunny can get a master's, or he thought he was "in it to win it" eg. grab the big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Only problem was, he was too greedy to think about the consequences --public outrage and a beautiful little girl who was waiting for justice at the other end of the rainbow.

Francine said:

bbm

Kinda ironic because the foreperson is a high school teacher, doing his on-line studies for a master's degree from his hotel room, and he was the one who seemed to have convinced the jurors to go with a not guilty verdict. He was supposedly well-educated, but yet he led the jurors down the wrong path. He coulda told any juror worried about cruises, deadlines, etc. to step out of the picture and let an alternate step in so that they could go through to the penalty phase. So either any dumb bunny can get a master's, or he thought he was "in it to win it" eg. grab the big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Only problem was, he was too greedy to think about the consequences --public outrage and a beautiful little girl who was waiting for justice at the other end of the rainbow.

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He didn't come across as very bright to me. When he talks he's barely coherent and the whole "reading people" thing is just absurd.moo

It doesn't matter WHAT I think of this jury or it's decision. I know what this greedy sick person did to that sweet baby for her own tonyreasons but I won't say because

--and the fall-out continues...

http://newsblog.projo.com/2011/08/judge-bars-tv-cameras-and-audi.html
TV cameras barred in trial of mom accused of killing child

A Superior Court judge ruled Tuesday that television cameras and audio equipment will not be allowed in the courtroom at the upcoming trial of Kimberly Fry, who is accused of murdering her 8-year-old daughter in North Kingstown in 2009.

In delivering his decision after hearing lawyers' arguments, Judge William E. Carnes Jr. noted, in part, the closeness in time to the Casey Anthony murder trial in Florida.

A jury acquitted Anthony in a case that drew heavy national media attention. And the jurors' decision drew controversy and public reaction.-----------(you don't say.)

Carnes said in Washington County Superior Court that it is the potential for "the irresistible urge to draw comparison with the Casey Anthony case that has me concerned. He said he worried about influence being brought to bear on jurors in the Fry case from people in the community.

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ExpectingUnicorns said:

Found this article that upholds the sentiments that you and I seem to share re the questionable sanctity of the jury:

"Many commentators have said we must respect the findings of the jury and not second guess their decision. That is pure baloney. If we are to maintain our system of laws, we should respect the jury system. It is far better than carrying out lynchings in banana republics. But as demonstrated when juries convict people who are later exonerated by DNA evidence, juries are far from perfect. We have no obligation to pretend that they are by saying we respect their verdict however mindless it may be.

In the Casey Anthony case, the jury failed at its job, and a murderer went free."

http://www.newsmax.com/RonaldKessle...Anthony-GretaVanSusteren/2011/07/13/id/403503

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No one has to respect the findings of the jury except to the extent their decision is final. No problem there. Obligation to respect their decision is absurd. I don't have to respect, I CHOOSE to respect. I am personally powerless to change the verdict or the laws that uphold it. But that doesn't matter. I'll respect what is deserving of respect, and I recognize what I can control and influence and what I cannot.

This jury is sanctified by law only. They delivered their verdict, the deal is done. Fine. It is absurd (and silly) to ask us to respect it.

Juries are far from perfect. No thing or idea or conviction existing on this planet today is infallible. Thank goodness or God for the laws of "karma". Casey Anthony has not gone "free", her covers have been blown. In prison, she would have the protection (FWIW) of the guards. In the general public, she has no such assurances. I don't hope or wish that she comes to harm. She simply WILL. That is her karma. She invites it by her behavior. She participates willfully in bringing about harm for herself.

It is the consolation for her not being locked up for the rest of her life.

Personally, I don't even care if she makes a ton of money. It's not like THAT will prevent her from reaping what she sows. She can ONLY reap what she sows. Sit back and let reality do it's thing.

It has taken me a while to come up with a one line summation of my thoughts on the jury.

While I have to respect the justice system as a whole....my opinion is this.....

Clearly, the jury was in the mood for "spaghetti".

Francine said:

bbm

Kinda ironic because the foreperson is a high school teacher, doing his on-line studies for a master's degree from his hotel room, and he was the one who seemed to have convinced the jurors to go with a not guilty verdict. He was supposedly well-educated, but yet he led the jurors down the wrong path. He coulda told any juror worried about cruises, deadlines, etc. to step out of the picture and let an alternate step in so that they could go through to the penalty phase. So either any dumb bunny can get a master's, or he thought he was "in it to win it" eg. grab the big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Only problem was, he was too greedy to think about the consequences --public outrage and a beautiful little girl who was waiting for justice at the other end of the rainbow.

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BBM. Master's programs are not easy. I have a Master's in English and it was hard work. I can't imagine doing a Master's program totally online either. I had to meet with many of my professors in person. Maybe that's the way Master's programs are going now. Anyway, I don't think just anyone can do a Master's program. It defintely takes a lot of hard work and dedication. I'm still wondering how he was doing that and doing jury duty at the same time.

The second part of that sentence is what I agree with. He got dollar signs in his eyes, definitely. He wanted to be controversial and make money off of it. I just can't believe still that he got the other eleven people to go along with him.

The one guy had an FBI for a brother? And he was a gym teacher?

Hmm. Like gym teacher didn't tell fbi guy he was going to serve on the CA jury.

I will stop right there. Like gym guy didn't tell fbi guy he was going to serve on this jury. This was the one chance for gym guy to shine and say **** you to his FBI BRO. <modsnip>

I too was shocked when I heard the verdict. I had an e-mail all ready to send to my daughter at work and had guilty in the subject line with my finger on the send. After listening to some of the jurors comments after I was even more shocked. Two pieces of evidence for me was the lies & the 31 days. Since when is the defendants behavior not evidence? Isn't this where LE starts their investigation? IMO...The fact that some of the jurors fell for JB's manipulative strategies tells me ALOT. I sat and watched the trial and saw exactly what JB was doing. JB was methodical, not as far as presenting his case but with using brainwashing techniques on the jury and to my surprise it actually worked on some. The fact that these people didn't realize this was being done to them was evidence in itself to me that the juror that claimed to be good at reading people really couldn't...Did that make sense?

MsMacGyver said:

I too was shocked when I heard the verdict. I had an e-mail all ready to send to my daughter at work and had guilty in the subject line with my finger on the send. After listening to some of the jurors comments after I was even more shocked. Two pieces of evidence for me was the lies & the 31 days. Since when is the defendants behavior not evidence? Isn't this where LE starts their investigation? IMO...The fact that some of the jurors fell for JB's manipulative strategies tells me ALOT. I sat and watched the trial and saw exactly what JB was doing. JB was methodical, not as far as presenting his case but with using brainwashing techniques on the jury and to my surprise it actually worked on some. The fact that these people didn't realize this was being done to them was evidence in itself to me that the juror that claimed to be good at reading people really couldn't...Did that make sense?

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Your post made perfect sense.
I wanted to add that the main head scratching thing for me was the fact that imo many of us caught on to Mr. Baez's manipulations but the jurors saw none of it? How did they not see what JB imo was doing?
Thinking about the trial and how it ended still seem like a bad dream to me.

mo

jaleigh said:

Your post made perfect sense.
I wanted to add that the main head scratching thing for me was the fact that imo many of us caught on to Mr. Baez's manipulations but the jurors saw none of it? How did they not see what JB imo was doing?
Thinking about the trial and how it ended still seem like a bad dream to me.

mo

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I dont think the jury saw much of anything JMO that was exactly the problem. they were all like "ugghh all these details, it's so haaarrrdddd I wanna go swimmin' and that mean judge wont let me"

I've certainly read lots of criticism of those of us who are saying negative things - to put it mildly - about this jury, because apparently we should respect them.

I still respect the jury process, and the law. But if there is a bad apple in a bowl, I don't pretend it isn't there and just look the other way because it's an apple. I acknowledge that it's bad and make a decision to be more careful when choosing my next batch.

The same if we had a "bad judge" . One who made decisions based on his own opinion or one who was too lazy to look up precedents and points of law before making a decision. We'd get him out of his job as soon as the problem became apparent.

The only way the jury process remains the best process is to watch how the process works, judge "for the people" how well the jury did it's job and be critical if necessary and seek improvement. How else does the jury process remain what it's supposed to be? And this was a bad jury - no way around it. Clearly by their actions, and what they've contributed after their decision - they did not understand what they were there to do, and they let a guilty person go free.

There is nothing that will make me change my mind. Time won't homogenize my feelings - it's not going to "get better" and the only unanswered question I have is "Why"? I need an explanation for what happened - it still won't wash this jury clean. But "how" and "why" will help...

jaleigh said:

Your post made perfect sense.
I wanted to add that the main head scratching thing for me was the fact that imo many of us caught on to Mr. Baez's manipulations but the jurors saw none of it? How did they not see what JB imo was doing?
Thinking about the trial and how it ended still seem like a bad dream to me.

mo

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I know exactly how you feel. Some have commented on the education of the school coach. You can be educated...book smart, but lack the common sense to understand certain things. I used to work at a factory and I can tell you that out of 15 people there were maybe 3 that could have sat on this jury and understood what was going on but unlikely they would have spotted what JB was doing. His defense strategy was made mostly of IMO psychological strategies. Some were very obvious and I'm sure there are some I missed. The chair height of the felon, the number of people sitting at the defense table as opposed to the state, the placement of the defense table, the appearance of the felon..clothes..hairdo, the presentation of JB..underdog..bumbling..appearing to speak from his heart, the constant good mornings, constantly reminding the jurors to come to their verdict based on the exclusion of ANY and ALL possible doubt, the opening statement..shock value..divert attention from the evidence...present the jurors with a mental image most people could not dismiss, paint JA as a bully, accuse the state of fraud, etc. I've considered the possibility that maybe it would have been different if I was one of the jurors sitting in the jury box, maybe it would be more real to me, maybe I would have missed what JB was doing but I really don't think so. I actually think it would have made it more obvious to me. Everytime JB put on his little good morning act I would shake my head and say..does he really think this **** is going to work on this jury? I guess so!
Then there's Judge P rushing..pushing everyone on time. I think it was a small part of this perfect storm but added to it. Seeing the evidence through JA eyes, a SA for years, it was obvious to him what the evidence said but the people on the jury did not have that advantage. We all saw JB's poster presentation and might have thought it was stupid but he brought himself down to the kindergarten level and it just might have been affective. Add this to the fact the felon was young, pretty, it was a holiday and alot of people find it hard to believe a mother could kill her own child.
It was obvious to me that JB was outclassed by JA, Linda & Frank.
JA delivered a well organized, professionally delivered case despite his occasional smirks and giggles which by the way was my own reaction to JB's antics. The biggest share of the DT witnesses were turned into state witnesses and I believe the evidence WAS enough to convict. Unfortunately this went right over this jurys head. A few posts away LG asked why..how this could happen. I believe this post covers some of the reasons. I would be very interested in hearing more opinions from WSers. I have no education in psychology other than I enjoy watching people, wondering why people do what they do. From what I've seen from the A family, there is a whole other side to them. We have only seen a small glimpse into their personalitys and have been able to come to certain conclusions. I could fill many pages on each of their personalitys.

I believe that if we could put our personal feelings aside we could get back to what WSers do best. We could disect this case and come up with alot of answers. Even with the few jurors that have spoken we could come to some conclusions on why and how this case went so wrong and why and how 12 people came to the decision they did.
Adding to my previous post..JB's opening statement he admitted the felon was a liar and a s**t. This move by the DT made this evidence a non issue. Rather than try to fight against this accusation, he openly admitted this to the jury and spent very little time if none trying to convince the jury she was in fact messed up in the head. This made this issue..evidence..a non issue. The jurors then put this evidence on the back burner, it disappeared from their thought process and JB replaced it with the false image of the felon at 13, leaving for school...well you know the rest of the STORY..

MsMacGyver said:

I believe that if we could put our personal feelings aside we could get back to what WSers do best. We could disect this case and come up with alot of answers. Even with the few jurors that have spoken we could come to some conclusions on why and how this case went so wrong and why and how 12 people came to the decision they did.
Adding to my previous post..JB's opening statement he admitted the felon was a liar and a s**t. This move by the DT made this evidence a non issue. Rather than try to fight against this accusation, he openly admitted this to the jury and spent very little time if none trying to convince the jury she was in fact messed up in the head. This made this issue..evidence..a non issue. The jurors then put this evidence on the back burner, it disappeared from their thought process and JB replaced it with the false image of the felon at 13, leaving for school...well you know the rest of the STORY..

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BBM - i really appreciate the thought you have posted and I think that's what we've tried to do - but that's when the personal feelings come in - because we can't find an answer that "settles" with us - that doesn't cause anger and grief.
As you say - we KNOW the rest of the story - and there just isn't any peace there - at least for me.

MsMacGyver said:

I believe that if we could put our personal feelings aside we could get back to what WSers do best. We could disect this case and come up with alot of answers. Even with the few jurors that have spoken we could come to some conclusions on why and how this case went so wrong and why and how 12 people came to the decision they did.
Adding to my previous post..JB's opening statement he admitted the felon was a liar and a s**t. This move by the DT made this evidence a non issue. Rather than try to fight against this accusation, he openly admitted this to the jury and spent very little time if none trying to convince the jury she was in fact messed up in the head. This made this issue..evidence..a non issue. The jurors then put this evidence on the back burner, it disappeared from their thought process and JB replaced it with the false image of the felon at 13, leaving for school...well you know the rest of the STORY..

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BBM: I like your idea, and it is worth a try ... even though it will be extremely difficut, if not impossible, to keep "emotions" out of "trying" to "analyze" the "mindset" of the Pinellas 12 ...

It took me almost a week before I could even "listen to", as well as read, the "transcript" of the interviews with Juror #3 and the Jury Foreman when their interview was first aired ... and after I listened and read the transcripts, I was so disgusted and :sick:!

I have re-read some of the juror's transcripts recently, and I noticed much more "HINK" in their statements NOW than when I originally listened to their interviews when my emotions were high !

MOO ... In my opinion, the Jury Foreman's comments from his interview with Greta says it ALL ... I believe he was the "strong-arm" of the group -- BOTH PRIOR TO and DURING deliberations ...

MOO ...

dog.gone.cute said:

BBM: I like your idea, and it is worth a try ... even though it will be extremely difficut, if not impossible, to keep "emotions" out of "trying" to "analyze" the "mindset" of the Pinellas 12 ...

It took me almost a week before I could even "listen to", as well as read, the "transcript" of the interviews with Juror #3 and the Jury Foreman when their interview was first aired ... and after I listened and read the transcripts, I was so disgusted and :sick:!

I have re-read some of the juror's transcripts recently, and I noticed much more "HINK" in their statements NOW than when I originally listened to their interviews when my emotions were high !

MOO ... In my opinion, the Jury Foreman's comments from his interview with Greta says it ALL ... I believe he was the "strong-arm" of the group -- BOTH PRIOR TO and DURING deliberations ...

MOO ...

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If there was a 'strong-arm' in the group, I wish one or more of the jurors would come out and say so. Sigh.

logicalgirl said:

BBM - i really appreciate the thought you have posted and I think that's what we've tried to do - but that's when the personal feelings come in - because we can't find an answer that "settles" with us - that doesn't cause anger and grief.
As you say - we KNOW the rest of the story - and there just isn't any peace there - at least for me.

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I know exactly what your saying LG. There is NO end to this case. Those of us here who have followed this case from the first media report will NEVER be satisfied until the felon confesses or LE finds a way to correct this miscarriage of justice. Since miracles are few and far between I'm not holdin my breath. I do find some comfort in the fact that God does work in mysterious ways. It's my hope that all the children who have been lost are now safe. As a parent it's heartbreaking to think that some of them died at the hands of their own mother or father. What happened in this case was so obvious to alot of people, so why and how did the outcome end up so wrong?
Thats all I was trying to get to.

MsMacGyver said:

I believe that if we could put our personal feelings aside we could get back to what WSers do best. We could disect this case and come up with alot of answers. Even with the few jurors that have spoken we could come to some conclusions on why and how this case went so wrong and why and how 12 people came to the decision they did.
Adding to my previous post..JB's opening statement he admitted the felon was a liar and a s**t. This move by the DT made this evidence a non issue. Rather than try to fight against this accusation, he openly admitted this to the jury and spent very little time if none trying to convince the jury she was in fact messed up in the head. This made this issue..evidence..a non issue. The jurors then put this evidence on the back burner, it disappeared from their thought process and JB replaced it with the false image of the felon at 13, leaving for school...well you know the rest of the STORY..

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What answers - I know who did it, what day she did it and pretty much the hour (the late afternoon) and why she did it and it was not just to party it was also a hate killing and to make Cindy suffer. That was patently clear the day Cindy got up on the stand during the Frye hearings and said she may have put the dryer sheets in the trunk and we all watched as KC said "thank you" to her when she left the stand.

IMO, there is nothing new to this case - we have it all.

I remember reading something here which also may have played a big part in the verdict

when the DT made a big hoo-ha about wanting to change the placement of the defense table, supposedly to hide what was on their 'puter screens from view:

the positioning of the defense table had OCA facing the jury instead of them viewing her in profile. what I read here somewhere/sometime pointed out how your perception of a person subtly changes when you view them head-on for a considerable length of time. it tends to humanize them more than you realize, because it happens on a subconscious level

so she became more of a person to them, rather than just a defendant. bummer