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How Jurors Think

Ponder this before your next trial:I was a juror on a murder case 3 years ago...a mother charged with suffocating her 23 month old son. Similar to this case, there was no physical evidence...no blanket fibers in the child's nose or mouth and the coroner/forensic team could not say how this child died but *speculated* suffocation. The mother (pregnant with her 3rd or 4th child) claimed the child was acting out, had a tantrum so she put him in his room and made him go to bed at around 4pm. She did not check on him until 10 or 11am the next morning...he was dead, his body already badly decomposing because he'd obviously been dead for a while. Once we got into deliberations...I spoke out and said I had a hard time finding this mother guilty where there is no cause of death...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime & Federalism on July 03, 2010 (boomark / email).