Trying to defy a Judge's instructions to the jury in these parts isn't well tolerated.
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Any sense of what that district has done in similar circumstances?
Around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Senior U.S. District Judge William Terrell Hodges announced that jurors had a question. He displayed a copy of jury instructions marked with yellow highlighter and red marks, and told the lawyers present that the jury had a question about the meaning of the term "conspiracy."
Because people take into the jury room their pre-conceived ideas of what legal terms mean. Most people, if asked, would probably tell you that conspiracy involves secrecy. It would not surprise me if the problem is with this misconception.It's an agreement between two (or more) people to break the law sometime in the future.
What's so hard to understand about that?
I'm not sure if you've seen the show, but IIRC, it looks like American adults with college educations are registering lower than a fifth grade level...on pretty much everything. They were getting first grade questions wrong.Judge Roy Bean wrote:Any wonder why the producers of the hit TV show picked that particular window of educational time to package their game?
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank my mother who read to me every night and encouraged me to read. Without her I'd never have scored a reading comprehension level of 12th grade on my first day of school (back in 1975).Judge Roy Bean wrote:We all need to keep in mind a key fact I'm often prodded into remembering: The average reading and comprehension level of people in the United States is roughly at the fifth-grade level.
My wife and I saw that episode about three years ago and she suggested that the judge "just throw their asses into Gitmo and be done with it."webhick wrote:Jury time should involve 5 hours of L&O (pre-Elizabeth Rohm). Then they'd know what a freaking conspiracy is. And some other stuff too. They could throw in that episode about the militia group and the gold fringe on the flag, if they want the jurors to get an idea of what the freak show they might be seeing.
If that's all their was to it, it wouldn't be hard to understand, but that is hardly a definition of conspiracy.Doktor Avalanche wrote:It's an agreement between two (or more) people to break the law sometime in the future.
What's so hard to understand about that? Based on the evidence presented by the prosecution, especially in Rosiles and Kahn's case, that fits.
That, Mr. Branscum, is the legal definition of conspiracy.Bill E. Branscum wrote: If that's all their was to it, it wouldn't be hard to understand, but that is hardly a definition of conspiracy.
That's not even close.
Demosthenes wrote:What I find interesting is how hard Snipes pushed to move the trial to New York. I think his odds of acquittal are quite a higher here. It's an older, conservative, high school educated jury in a low tax state.
Doktor Avalanche wrote:That, Mr. Branscum, is the legal definition of conspiracy.Bill E. Branscum wrote: If that's all their was to it, it wouldn't be hard to understand, but that is hardly a definition of conspiracy.
That's not even close.
Just how much is Mr. Snipes paying you?