People who have been jurors in a criminal trial, what were the dumbest things other jurors said or did?

“I don’t think calling someone’s phone 10000 times in a week counts as harassment” smh

When I was 18 or 19, ny Dad had to serve on a jury. For whatever reason, I had to go pick him up at the courthouse when the trial was over. When I got there, Dad told me to wait, because he eneded to go talk to somebody. Some other dude told me he'd been on the jury with my Dad, and that I should be proud becuase my Dad was selected as the foreman. I asked how they picked him, and the guy said, "he was the only one of us in a suit, so we knew he was smart."

I was a juror on a case where an older couple sued a furniture company. The couple bought a high end sofa, the reclining mechanism broke after 3 weeks, and despite being under warranty it still wasn’t repaired 2 years later. They had documented every excuse the furniture company gave them: “The repair guy got a flat tire.”; “We ordered the wrong part.”; “The repairman’s mother died.”; “The person that orders parts is on vacation.” Two years worth of bullshit, so they sued for their money back. During deliberations, one juror felt the furniture company didn’t deserve to pay because “I think the company was trying really hard!”

In the 1994 UK case of R v Young (Stephen), four jurors used a Ouija board in a hotel room while sequestered to "contact" the victims of a murder trial, leading to a guilty verdict. The bizarre misconduct was exposed by a juror, resulting in a successful appeal and a retrial, which resulted in a conviction.

I was on a jury where this guy says, if he wasn’t guilty he wouldn’t be on trial.

OH YES THIS IS MY TIME TO SHINE. Guy robbed a liquor store. Caught on video. Confessed on video. Shaved his beard between the confession and the court case. One juror was convinced the guy on trial and the guy confessing WERE NOT THE SAME PERSON. Was convinced it was a conspiracy. After 2 days of deliberations, he refused to speak to any other jurors We were a hung jury after 5 days of deliberation. Even the defense attorneys wanted to speak to us afterward and were like, wait wtf HOW

I was a juror for a horrible kidnapping/murder trial. In the deliberations one juror kept asking if anyone had gum. Every day. For 10.5 days. We weren’t even sequestered. Dude. Hit the gas station on the corner and get some! Nope. Every. Damn. Day. By the 5th day everyone was throwing gum at this guy multiple times. Maybe it was his own social experiment or something. Super weird

I was a jury foreman years ago, dude on trial was absolutely guilty(DUI), 100 percent. We go in to deliberate, and another juror says "we know he fucked up, but how about 'not guilty' so we can not argue and just all get outta here?" Lol, no.

I served with a guy who said, "She looks like she'd be friends with my ex. I bet she's a liar." Me: "If I said I think you look like you would cheat on your girlfriend, should we put you in jail?" Him: "I didn't cheat. We weren't like official, you know?" I didn't even know how to respond to that one. Talk about missing the point and proving it at the same time.

Purposely voting the opposite of everyone else, because their job gave them jury pay and so it was like a vacation for them. The foreman finally got the judge involved and the juror tossed. Should have been held in contempt.

Only was in one but a woman in our group announced at the onset that if we all voted in one way as a group, she would vote otherwise, even if she agreed with us. Everyone argued with her proclamation, but she stuck to it, insisting she was "keeping it real". I honestly hated her. I hope someday that she has just such a case and has just such a juror deciding HER fate. Just "keeping it real".

“I don’t think it’s wrong to steal copper wiring”. I was jury foreman, and it took a day to change this jurors mind.

Had a more interesting high profile case than most and one woman despite believing the accused was guilty...simply refused to agree to vote guilty. Just in case she was wrong. Despite the fact she did believe a guilty verdict was appropriate. Very frustrating. The judge initially really wanted our decision to be unanimous so extended deliberations by many many hours. Most of those hours were spent molycoddling this one woman who simply couldn't make a decision. Eventually the judge settled for an 11 to 1.

We had one juror who refused to vote guilty because "she said she didn't do it." Should have been a matter of hours in the jury room, but we deliberated for three days before we hung 11-1.

UK here. One of the other jurors was a prison guard. Absolute lunatic. Thought everyone was guilty, accused another juror of being in on it, briefly went on a rant about how he thought an usher was tampering with evidence, absolutely would not back down. Ended up getting removed for bias and we proceeded with 11, but it took a good long while.

It wasn’t even in court yet, I can’t think of the proper name. Not petit jury. ANYWAYS a dude was questioning the victim about her residency and kept saying there was absolutely no way there were townhouses where she said they were…. It was unhinged, like dude, she lives there she knows what kind of building she lives in… It was made worse that it was a stalking/harassment case and his questions were just making her super uncomfortable to the point of tears so we had to take a break…

The dumbest thing I saw was done by the judge. As they were interviewing jurors and the defendant is sitting there with a gang of friends, the judge started using the jurors last names in calling them. So the defendant and his friends could find any of the jurors and where they lived easily.

Juror fell asleep during trial

I was on a battery trial with two infuriating other jurors. The trial should have been an open and shut case. The guy had so much evidence against him that no one cod deny. But these two? They didn’t want to vote guilty because declaring a man guilty for beating the shit out of his ex would make them sad. The excuses they tried to come up with was mind-boggling, ranging from “we’re not the same race so we can’t be peers!” (Several of us called her a racist for that and made her cry) to “It’s my birthday and it’s bad luck!” or some bullshit. A hung jury wasn’t allowed, so it was a torturous two days to make them stop their bullshit and agree that yes, he was guilty. Sorry your fee fees were hurt, but too f****** bad.

A couple jurors attempted to infer the defendent wasn't guilty of aggravated robbery because he was on drugs. That was quashed pretty quickly.

Civil, not criminal, but one of the jurors immediately sat out of deliberations because she felt companies shouldn't be punished monetarily for "a simple oversight." An intellectually disabled man suffered second and third degree burns over most of his body due to a gas explosion where the meter hadn't been inspected since it was installed... 60 years ago. The other 11 of us didn't even try to sway her and spent our 2 days arguing how much money to give the man and his mother who was also injured. We ended up with 10 agreeing on an amount unanimously which is all we needed. The company in question messed up the investigation into the explosion from the get go, lost a critical piece of evidence, and one of their expert witnesses pretty much lied on the stand and their lawyers fought that evidence being given to us so we wouldn't see the lie. How I ended up on that jury, I'll never know. I was honest that I don't trust companies to have consumer's best interests in mind and that I've spent most of my adult life working with intellectually disabled children. But we made sure that man and his family will never want for anything ever again.

“Halfway through deliberations someone goes, ‘I just feel like he looks guilty.’ No evidence, no reasoning — just vibes. Meanwhile we’ve got timelines, testimonies, and actual facts on the table… but sure, let’s consult your psychic abilities, Karen.” Wild how fast ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ turns into ‘beyond a reasonable vibe.’

I have been on about 6 or 7 juries, mostly very minor cases One of the jurors was a naturalized US citizen who worked for the post office. Her understanding of bureaucratic detail was poor. She thought she was going to get the daily jury pay for every hour, not for the whole day. But as a federal employee, she was getting her normal pay,, so she wasn't getting any more pay from the jury anyway. She really didn't understand what was going on. Fortunately she was one of the alternates and so didn't participate in the final deliberations. In another case, two jurors were both Cantonese speakers and spent a lot of time talking to each other in Cantonese. We had no way of knowing what they were really saying about the trial to each other. In another case there was a kind of crazy woman on the jury. She even once ran out of the jury room while we were deliberating our verdict and the staff had to retrieve her. All the rest of the jurors had already decided on their verdicts but w without her vote, the final verdict wouldn't be valid. We finally convinced her to go along with the others so we could go home!

I sat on Federal Grand Jury. The Jury Foreman wanted to indict everyone (and I quote) "so they can prove their innocence in court". He very clearly did not understand anything about the American judicial system.

I have been on juries in two criminal cases (years apart, different counties). In both cases, I was generally impressed with how well my fellow jurors handled the responsibility. That said, in one case, one juror was unwilling to doubt the word of a police officer. It took two days, but the other 11 of us got her to change her mind, and vote for not guilty. In the second case, a lady would go into a department store with a shopping bag. In the bottom of the shopping bag were a lot of store receipts she had found in waste baskets etc. She would put stolen items in the bag and claim she had bought them. Of course, the receipts were printed with dates (not the same date she was arrested), and merchandise codes (not for the items in her bags). Her defense attorney urged us to disregard the hocus-pocus computer codes. We of the jury practically rolled our eyes in unison.

I was a juror in a double homicide, double attempted homicide, gang enhancement, firearm enhancement, two defendants, all circumstantial evidence. The presentation of the case went on for 3 months. I was really worried about how deliberations would go…and everyone was beyond fantastic. A diverse, thoughtful, considerate group of people who took their duty seriously and followed the law. The wildest part was trying to reconstruct the movement of the perpetrators and getaway driver, based on security camera footage from multiple cameras. We had a giant map on the wall. Then, we had post its showing the time on the camera and the correct time at each camera location. Then, we had different colored yarn to trace the path of each thing. We truly became the It’s Always Sunny meme where Charlie has the red yard and the map.

Being interviewed for a jury. One of the older women spoke and said she was French and didn’t really understand English and asked to be excused. Judge asked her how long she had lived in America and she said 25 years. Judge told her to sit down.

I was on a case where a black juror mentioned she wanted the white defendant convicted even though she felt he was innocent for revenge for black men unfairly convicted. I reported her and she was removed, thank God.

Juror #1 The kid was guilty All other jurors The woman was guilty Juror #1 That’s fine I don’t care.

I was on a six week trial, vaguely related to some high profile criminal names in Australia. I'm happy to say everyone in the jury was great, and we all got on like a house on fire the whole time. This was the 90's, so it was a different time. The dumbest thing that was done was very minor. By the time deliberations came, everything had been rehashed so many times that it was utterly clear to everyone involved that the two on trial were not guilty. One of the jurors said "we should stay in here a while, so they know we took this seriously". Haha, nar mate. We ended up going out for celebratory drinks, running into the defendants and their crew, hearing even more evidence that wasn't allowed to be presented, and having a good laugh at the straws that the prosecution was grasping at.

Someone was convinced that notarizing meant that the contents of a document were all true. They didn’t understand that a notary can just be like, your neighbor with no background in law or criminal justice, who does it as a side hustle. In this case the defendant wrote a letter saying the crack rocks did not belong to her, and got someone to notarize it, and the juror thought that made it an open and shut case.

One juror wanted to find the defendant guilty because the defendant met 2 of 3 criteria: 1. He was in the county where the alleged crime was committed. 2. He was in the county on or around the day the alleged crime was committed The jury (11 of 12) did not think he committed the crime. This juror was “a numbers guy” and if he fit 2 of the 3 criteria, then he was guilty. It took 30 minutes to convince him the first 2 points don’t matter unless he was guilty of #3

Wasn’t on a jury, but I consider myself pretty well put together. Got summoned, went through everything to be selected, and was nearing the end. I originally didn’t want to be selected, but then as time went on as I got closer I thought it might be interesting to do. They put a handful of us up there and the lawyers were interviewing us. This one guy gave absolutely bonkers answers. I was dismissed after that section and bonkers dude got selected. I know, they were probably looking for someone they felt they could sway and blah blah blah, but still…. Wtf.

I was on a jury for a case of spousal serial abuse. One of the charges was "digital penetration". Two of the jurors insisted that that meant he used a vibrator on her.

“F*** you” to the judge. I was the clerk. Judge didn’t seem phased at all though, apparently didn’t hear it.

Not a juror (I've been summoned around 10 times now and have never served) but the last one I was summoned for was a Federal case where a man was accused of stealing checks out of mailboxes and cashing them. His dumb ass was representing himself and he wasn't even paying attention to jury selection...like he had his head down and looked, basically, asleep. I'm assuming his trial didn't go well for him. lol

I was jury foreman for a civil trial, and everyone was pretty reasonable. There was only one holdup, which was a woman that was worried the teenager would get a ticket for having his cousin in his car with him with only a probationary license. Once we reassured her they weren't going to give him a ticket for a driving infraction from five years ago we were all set.

I’ve done one, grand theft case. The evidence was overwhelming and defense was just repeating “beyond a reasonable doubt,” like it was this person’s only escape. Turns out it was going to be their third conviction which carried some serious time behind bars. We had one guy that was like, “we are about to ruin their life. Should we do that?” The answer is yes. They committed this crime multiple times, and the victim had their credit tanked because of it. Anyway, 3 hours later we finally convinced him that the defendant was, in fact, guilty. So we ruled that way. Took some effort, though. For added context, there was literal video of this person committing the crime. Probably never should have gone to trial.

The second day of trial we were kept in the jurors room for most of the day, because something came up with the Judge so they said. One guy I was talking to declared he already knew the guy was guilty after one day of testimony. On the same trial during deliberations a second guy disagreed with a timeline they had given during the trial, because he knew the area and was convinced traffic was to bad at that time of day to make a drive in time.

My first jury trial that I was ever actually called up for, of course I end up serving. One of my fellow jurors wanted to clarify whether the victim was killed by the act of decapitation. My brother in Allah, what are you smoking?

Jury duty reveals how many people confuse vibes with evidence

Child abuse trial including sexual assault of a 3 year old girl, and one of the jurors impatiently exclaimed during deliberation “I got a pot of greens in my crockpot and I need to get home.”.

Was a juror for a case last year involving a domestic and SA. It was difficult because of the lack of evidence. We could only judge on the facts given and had to remain unbiased. I think everyone would have found the defendant not guilty on most counts based on that but on the fourth day the defendant went on the stand and spoke. The story was so outrageous we eventually had a unanimous guilty verdict.

I was at a jury selection... and some of the most BS excuses to get out of it came up, but one of the more memorable (we were there about this guy who hit a woman, who went to the hospital and died) and we were going to be figuring if him driving drunk caused her death) and one of the juryselects when asked 'can you be unbias'd straight up said NOPE. Why? Well, her and her husband were riding their motercycles and some drunk kid came around the corner and husband ended up in the hospital in a bad way, (don't remember if he was dead or paralyzed) but she straight up said Nope, I reached my age I am and I am set in stuck in my ways I dont like being told what to do, and I will not be unbiased. Judge let her out. Another juror says he's deaf in one ear, and they went through all kinds of hoops trying to keep him on the panel, saying stuff like so if we set you on this side of the room will you be able to hear this much of the convo, and I'm sitting there going (B**** REALLY?)

Not exactly a thing that a juror said, but was really dumb... I was on a 2 1/2 month trial as a juror, and it was basically a 2-man crime wave and the DA rolled everything they did into one trial. At one point one of the defendants robbed a pot dealer of an entire 5 gallon paper grocery bag full of trimmed buds. I have no idea why but during a trial break where the jury goes into it's private room, one of the bailiffs put the evidence bag still full of pot on the conference table in the jury room and left.

“Let’s just call him not guilty so we can all just go home”

I wasn't chosen, but it didn't start out well.. dude decided to defend himself for a vehicular homicide, and during jury selection, started rejecting people people because they weren't white. After the first few people, the judge asked him directly... and he said that he "didn't want any n\*\*\*\*rs judging him". Needless to say.. he was held in contempt by the *black* judge and all the jurors got to go home that day.

I’ve never been a juror, but I’m really interested in it. It’s crazy how people’s lives can depend on a group of strangers

I was a juror on a murder trial and another juror kept falling asleep. He was removed from the jury on the second day and replaced with an alternate.

I was on a jury for a hit and run case where the victim was an older woman. The prosecution’s case was very weak, but a juror wanted to convict because “if that happened to my wife, I’d be really mad.”

Guy tried to convince us (the jury) he was trying to sell his knife to another dude in a dark parking lot in the early morning

Foreman got kicked out for 'multiple violations.' Think he posted on social media about the case and got caught.

I was part of a mock trial once that was based on an upcoming real case. Basically they were trying to figure out whether they should settle. I saw a clear cut case of negligence, but I couldn't convince the other people to agree with me. So maybe I was the dumb one in that situation. Either because my point of view was so difficult for people to agree with, or because I just couldn't articulate my thinking well enough to be convincing.

If you like "dumb stuff said in a courtroom setting" then you might enjoy the 2023 prank/reality show called [Jury Duty](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDmYcIZWt3Y). It's about one guy who got summoned for jury duty and believes its all real, but everyone else (the other jurors, the judge, the lawyers, etc) are actually actors. James Marsden is even in it as a celebrity who got summoned and couldn't get out of jury duty. It was pretty funny, if you like that sort of thing (kind of recreated the feel of that old Joe Schmo Show from 2003).

Guy was getting high in his car every day at lunch.

My grandpa lives in the largest county in my state. It's also the least populated. The small town I grew up in has a higher population than the entire county. This means that the jury pool is pretty small. A lot of people around there have been called up for jury duty *many* times. Well, as my grandpa started to age, he started getting sick and tired of being called in for jury duty. His solution to this problem was to start yelling "Give them the death penalty!" even when no real serious crime had been committed to warrant such a sentencing. Apparently he yelled that at enough hearings that the county finally stopped sending him a summons. I'm starting to think he was onto something.

During deliberations, one of my fellow jurors encouraged all of us to "go home and pray on this., and seek god's guidance. " I countered with, no, go home and think about the evidence presented to us. Not a magic man or your emotions."