April 15, 2004 - I have some positive news to report! Yes! I was summoned to jury duty on April 12 and I was eventually picked to be on a jury to hear a criminal case. Let me tell you I feel a little better about the justice system in that I have witnessed how reasonable adults can listen to testimony and make fair and unbiased decisions.

In short, the case involved a man who allegedly called an insurance office and made "terroristic threats" and threatened to use "weapons of mass destruction." The quotes indicate that that is the terminology as it's written in the law. What accused supposedly did was threaten to kick the guy's a** and blow the place up; bomb threat, not WMD like we're looking for in Iraq. The accused was brought to trial and it was a quick case; a case of "he said" vs. "he said." There were no witnesses on either side to validate or dispute what each person claimed was said. The man who received the threatening phone call did feel it was necessary to call the police in which a case a report was filed, a warrant issued, and the accused was eventually picked up and arrested; four months after he made the supposed threats over the phone. By the way, both the insurance company and police department had the accused's address.

The accused was charged with two crimes. The accused admitted he made the phone call and that he was upset but denied making the statements the insurance co. employee said were made. We quickly dismissed the WMD charge. The other charge, making terroristic threats, we found him not guilty after about an hour of discussing it. The prosecution did not present enough testimony (there was no evidence admitted so all we had to evaluate was the verbal testimony of two people) to prove beyond the reasonable doubt. Probability of guilt does not mean someone is guilty. Personally, I think the accused probably said something that was deemed threatening but there wasn't enough from the prosecution to sway us. Since this was my first time on jury duty I must say it was good to see a group of citizens take this case seriously and not jump to conclusions on matters. If someone accuses someone of something that doesn't mean it's true. Every juror made good points and we were all willing to listen to everyone's assessment.

The last thing is that this incident took place 14 months ago. The accused was arrested four months after that. Plus, the time and resources involved are astounding for a relatively minor thing. Yes, bomb threats are serious, but considering what didn't happen - the building wasn't evacuated, no employees came to testify how frightened they were, the ins. co. did not send anyone to testify about lost business or undue hardship on employees even though a guy said he might blow the place up. Plus, the accused did not know the person he spoke to by sight (and vice-versa) and did not know where the insurance office was located. It was an empty threat, yes, but the crime is actually making the threat, regardless of whether one intends to go through with it. We couldn't be 100% sure that the threat was actually made.

There was a little more to the trial that that, but that's it in a nutshell. There were enough doubts in our minds that we had to find the accused not guilty on both counts.