The alternate thing makes sense in case someone has an emergency or whatever, and cannot finish, but yes. Frustrating in that I felt that her voice should have also counted in the deliberations and verdict. She sat there and listened to it all, too.I agree with the necessity for an alternate - or sometimes, more than one - but that always seemed a bit frustrating.
Right. No one knows if a jury is going to take 15 minutes or 15 hours. So the judge tells everyone to leave their phone numbers with the clerk and, if the defendant is in custody (something that the jury isn't supposed to know), has the sheriff take the defendant back to jail. So when the jury verdict is reached, they have to get all thoe people back together.
I'd wager that the psychopath was already in jail. He would've come to court dressed in street clothes, but the theory is that the jury knows he's already in jail, that will be a prejudicial factor against him.
Aren't jury instructions fun? (Hint for everyone else: No.)
They don't all do that, and I sure wish they would. It helps give the jurors comfort and closure after performing such an important function. It happens more in rural areas than urban areas. But it should happen anyway. C'mon, judges, are you trying to maximize the hours on your salary? Talk to them.
Perfect sense, and thank you again.
We did not know, until after, when the Judge talked with us. But he was not in jail, had been out on bond. After the verdict was read, we were officially released from service, and he told us if we wanted to wait for him to talk to us, he would be back in a few minutes. We went to the jury room, and the defense asked that he be allowed to stay out on bond until his sentencing, which the judge denied. So he was taken into custody then. But we did not see any of that, the judge told us when he came back to the jury room.
The jury instructions definitely took some walking through. All the legal speak. We did request the legal definitions of "intentionally" and "knowingly", but did not get any help. The judge told us after it was because legally they mean the same as in your general knowledge and use of the words and that was why we did not get the definitions. And that is what we thought, when we decided to ask, but we wanted to make sure.