Sounds like the jury got it right!

Yeah, I read about that case. He's eligible for parole in 2049 when he's in his sixties.

lethalninja said:

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Did any of the jurors that wanted to give the guy probation for killing his friend in the DWI blame his friend for getting in the car with him and not wearing a seatbelt? I'll admit that his friend made some poor choices (both of them did, but the friend wasn't endangering other people), but he shouldn't get probation, since he was already on probation for DWI at the time of the crash.

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Yes, the fact that the friend chose not to wear a seatbelt and surely knew the defendant was intoxicated when he got in the truck with him was discussed.

And I misremembered, it actually wasn't probation they wanted, they were lobbying for the minimum 2 years prison. It's a second degree felony, so 2-20 years. Others of us felt it should be more than the minimum since he was already on probation for DWI when it happened, and he was like 3 times the legal limit of intoxication.

I seem to be called for jury duty once per year, including a trip to Houston for federal jury duty, which sucked bigly.

Only time I actually served was on a DUI case a few years ago. I remember the case, but the one thing I really learned from it was if you are in Brazos County, have been accused of a crime and have the ability to do so, hire Shane Phelps.

Shane Phelps is a good lawyer (I saw a trial where the guy was charged with murder and the jury ended up convicting him of manslaughter, which was impressive on Shane Phelps's part, but he still got sixty years because of his long record of violence and drugs), but Craig Greening and Jim James are in the top five percent of all lawyers in Texas (not just criminal lawyers). Jim James got someone I know probation and county jail time for manslaughter, two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and two counts of felony drug possession (he was out on bond for the first three charges when he got arrested for the drugs, and the first three charges were from a car crash, in case you were wondering, and the drug charges were dismissed).

Count me in the camp of hoping I never need one of those guys.

To be fair, Shane Phelps probably could have gotten the guy I know probation and county jail time as well, since he was seventeen at the time of the crash, he wasn't drunk or on drugs (he was driving 87 in a 45), he didn't have a criminal record before the crash (except for one speeding ticket), and the son and daughter of the deceased victim agreed with the plea deal, but it's still impressive that he was able to get him probation, even though he got arrested for two felonies while on bond for the crash.

From my personal experience I just remember that Phelps took on a very difficult case to win given all the evidence against his client. He did an excellent job impeaching the testimony of the person CSPD sent up to the stand to testify about the breathalyzer machine, to the point where we had to throw that evidence out. It didn't help that the lady they had there did an awful job and seriously had no clue how to operate the machine. It was comical that she was that bad, and actually kind of disturbing knowing an idiot like that can be the difference in a criminal case.

We didn't acquit the guy, he was obviously intoxicated based on the video evidence but given that the evidence of his actual level of intoxication was disregarded due to unreliable operation, we were allowed to hand down a lesser verdict. Could have been DUI instead of the more serious DWI. I can't recall exactly now.

Can anyone explain why we are called at least annually in Brazos? Do we really need 250k potential jurors a year?

Stucco said:

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Can anyone explain why we are called at least annually in Brazos? Do we really need 250k potential jurors a year?

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my guess is because like voting results, very few actually show up for jury duty, like they show up to vote in local elections.

Interestingly, he's now unable to serve on a jury, since people convicted of misdemeanor theft or a felony are unable to serve on juries in Texas.

I've only received a jury summons once (in 2019, but there were a lot of days I said couldn't make because of an on campus class I was taking in the middle of the day twice a week, so I didn't have to go to jury selection), so it's random and not necessarily every year.

Stucco said:

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Can anyone explain why we are called at least annually in Brazos? Do we really need 250k potential jurors a year?

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In the last 10 years I've had minimum 8 Brazos County courthouses summons, 2 or 3 JP summons and 1 federal summons. The only time I got a break was after I was picked for a jury, I didn't get a summons for the next 18 months or so. I'm pretty sick and tired of it.

Do people who are older get more summons than people who are younger, since I'm in my twenties and I've only gotten one summon in 2019 and none since then?

lethalninja said:

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Interestingly, he's now unable to serve on a jury, since people convicted of misdemeanor theft or a felony are unable to serve on juries in Texas.

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my guess is he doesn't give damn about that. His defense was he didn't do it. That's why he wouldn't just pay the fine. Again it was waste of the people's time and only gave even more bad rap of jury duty

lethalninja said:

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Do people who are older get more summons than people who are younger, since I'm in my twenties and I've only gotten one summon in 2019 and none since then?

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I moved to Brazos County in 2006, I get called about every 18 months, so I'm not sure age matters.

Most people don't like jury duty anyways, so if he knows he's ineligible for jury duty, he would probably be glad. He's an idiot and should have just paid the fine.

The Anchor said:

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textar4404 said:

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Esteban du Plantier said:

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EBrazosAg said:

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Not sure what you are after or purpose? Never had a bad experience with jury duty or on a jury here in 25+ years. Remember- we all want Justice for others, and grace for ourselves. Probably not a lot of practical application to your brief story.

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OP is an AI chat bot, I'm pretty confident in that.

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My guess is he's the same guy that used to post years ago that lived with his mom, then moved out of state, but continued to post strange topics. Can't remember the username. Way back in the MyBCS days.

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That poster was 1984Consol (or something similar)

I thought the same thing

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Just have to ask him what his favorite mustard is.

Hint: the burger restaurant on Harvey is no longer in business.

That's a name I haven't heard in a very long time

Belton Ag said:

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From my personal experience I just remember that Phelps took on a very difficult case to win given all the evidence against his client. He did an excellent job impeaching the testimony of the person CSPD sent up to the stand to testify about the breathalyzer machine, to the point where we had to throw that evidence out. It didn't help that the lady they had there did an awful job and seriously had no clue how to operate the machine. It was comical that she was that bad, and actually kind of disturbing knowing an idiot like that can be the difference in a criminal case.

We didn't acquit the guy, he was obviously intoxicated based on the video evidence but given that the evidence of his actual level of intoxication was disregarded due to unreliable operation, we were allowed to hand down a lesser verdict. Could have been DUI instead of the more serious DWI. I can't recall exactly now.

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I wonder if that's why CSPD no longer has Intoxilyzer machines. There are two at the county jail (and have been for a long time) that were used by all of the other agencies, and now CSPD as well. Those ones are maintained by DPS, by a two or three individuals who have that as their sole job (along with teaching cops how they work and how to use them.) Those DPS people are the ones who get called to testify.

I served on a felony arson case. The case was tried many years after the fact. The kid had a good job, was married and had been a productive member of society since. We gave him the maximum fine and the maximum probation so he could continue to be a tax paying citizen not sucking off of the teat of society while sitting in jail.
I met some great people on that jury and made some good business contacts. I was happy to do it, but I'm not self employed!

I was chosen for a case involving multiple deaths. I won't give details as I believe it is going back to trial but it was a very exhausting week. On Friday mid day the only thing the jury could agree on is that we couldn't agree. We were sent back to deliberate more because we had not deliberated long enough. At about 10 PM we sent the same result to the judge.

This was an eye opening experience and the way some people think scares me. I hope I put in some good karma because if I'm ever or trial I don't want some of those people on my jury.

I also 100% believe in jury PTSD.

I served on a jury that heard a traffic violation case, believe it or not. At the time the Bryan PD was running a red light 'sting' op at the corner of Texas and Villa Maria. An office sat in the parking lot of the drugstore on the NE corner and watched the light facing westbound traffic. If a car turned left out of the eastbound lane onto north Texas after the east-facing light turned green, the officer would radio their partner parked behind the drugstore to intercept. Our lucky contestant won the prize.

The 'perp' was introduced by the judge as a 'Bruce' who preferred to be called a 'Caitlyn', if you get my meaning, and Cate would be representing Cate'self. Cate, unfortunately, didn't have the throw-down to purchase the full blown Caitlyn package, so it was AWKWARD to the point of being humorous. Mind you, this was almost fifteen years ago - well before the recent awareness we all experience daily on the road to woke-ness.

Kudos to Cate for requesting a jury trial, especially one I ended up as the foreman on. Cate probably did run the red light - just barely. But the light the officer was looking at was not the light Cate was looking at, as Cate deftly pointed out. Were there timing issues? Who knows - the police department could not conclusively say the lights were timed perfectly. On top of that the prosecution was disinterested, sloppy and arrogant.

Both sides rested and we adjourned to deliberate. The jury was somewhat split, and I could tell one member wasn't going to budge on guilty. We all thought Cate probably was guilty, but the 'sting' operation stunk, and the sentiment was for the little guy, er, girl, uh person. We talked it over and I suggested a compromise where we found Cate guilty but reduced the monetary penalty. We returned to the courtroom where we were reseated and, when prompted by the judge, returned a guilty verdict with a $1 fine.