The Marshall Project

The Day I Didn’t Serve on a Jury in a Sex Assault Case

“As I left the courthouse it dawned on me that the judge had assumed the role of therapist.”

The first thing that struck me inside the courtroom was the palpable anger that some of my fellow prospective jurors emitted when they found out that the defendant in the case we had been called to serve was accused of sexually assaulting a minor. I would call the mood smoldering. One elderly women in the first row, with a grouchy disposition to begin with, immediately told the judge that she thought the defendant was guilty even though she knew nothing about the evidence. I mean, her arm shot into the air so quickly to make her point to the startled judge and the rest of

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