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Old 03-04-2009, 07:44 PM   #3
gja1000
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Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Central Texas
Posts: 5,717
WOW! Janet, you dodged a bullet. I would not want to sit on a child molestation jury either!!

I was on a murder case jury - the person had confessed to the murder, and they plea bargained for no death penalty, but we had to decide whether it was capital murder or plain murder. In Texas, capital murder means murder committed in the act of another crime and is much worse than just plain murder - and the penalty is worse.

This was a sweet faced, blond headed, blue-eyed 21 year old boy - but he had steely cold eyes. It was clear that he planned to rob the victim (and did) and thus, made it capital murder. The sentence was 45 years - before he was eligible for parole. So, we sent the kid away till he was 66 years old - not an easy thing to do, but the right thing.

We had to look at pictures of the murder victim, post mortem - it was awful, I don't want to have to do that again. BUT, it was a great learning experience, for sure!
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