Jury Duty

I was watching a episode of The Good Wife (yea I know I watch chick TV too) before I went out to a local poker tournament. Anyways in this episode the plot line revolves around a jury deliberating a verdict. The case is a girl is accused of murdering one on her college girl friends after they had had a 3some with a guy. You notice they got to get the sex part in these shows and any talk of a 3some improves ratings. Hell it got my interest. Anyways at the end the jury is excused after the girl takes a plea bargain. The jury had just voted to acquit her but never got a chance to render their verdict. The juror's felt like it was a big waste of time after all their deliberations. If you haven't seen this episode I just saved you an hour of your life.

Twenty years ago I was on a jury. The case was 2 brothers were accused of raping a girl after they had all got stoned together. If I can remember right (us old guys lose memory) she had met them and agreed to go smoke pot with them. They drove to Stanley Park I think and smoked up and then according to her they raped her.She said they held a knife to her throat while doing it. The brothers testified that it was consensual and there was no knife and she only screamed rape later.

Anyways I was excited to be on the jury. The company I worked for paid me my regular salary so it was like a holiday from work although a serious one. The jury consisted of 11 men and 1 lady. The defence lawyer put on a good case for the brothers and the prosecutor wasn't very good. Anyways the trial lasted for a week and then we went to deliberate our verdict.

We got in the jury room and all the evidence including a tool box was in the jury room for us to examine which to this day I still find bizarre. I never knew they would have evidence in the jury room and I am not sure if they still do. The tool box was found in the back of the brothers car. I think if I remember right the girl had described the tool box as the brothers had helped her earlier with her car that was having mechanical problems. This proved she was with them and as such was evidence. Now being nosy us jurors decided to look through the tool box. So what do we find at the bottom of the tool box?? Yep a knife. Similar to the one described by the girl in the trial. The thing is it was never presented to us in evidence. Really I am not making this up. We find a knife that for some bizarre reason that never got presented. So here we are all looking at each other going now what do we do. So we sent a note to the judge saying we had found this knife. As you know sometimes things are ruled inadmissible to juries.

The judge called us back in court and asked us if we could disregard this knife and we all said yes (although I am sure disbelief was on all our faces). Anyways we headed back to the jury room and then got called back to court about twenty minutes later and the judge said he had ruled a mistrial because of this. I had to bite my tongue as I wanted to say who was the idiot that didn't present this or ruled it inadmissible. How crazy is that??

We all were disappointed at having listened to all this evidence and yet never got to actually decide on the case. We also were in disbelief as to how badly this case was presented. I am not sure how our verdict would have gone but finding the knife would have certainly altered our thoughts. I mean the girl described this knife and how we she have known the brothers had such a weapon unless it was at her throat while they attacked her. I never found out if they retried this case and so there was never any closure for me on this week of my life so I could understand how those jurors felt last night on TV. That was the only trial I was ever selected for. Pretty bizarre eh.

As for poker last night. Just under 60 players. We had gotten down to 22 and I was one of the 2 big stacks at our table and I got dealt AJ suited. I bumped it just over 3x the BB. Got one caller(the big stack). Flop comes QJ6 rainbow. Now I know the caller has a wide range and plays really loose. I decide to shove with my middle pair top kicker hoping he hadn't hit his queen. Bad Decision. He calls he has Q10. I still have outs. The turn is a 10 Which give him two pair but also incrases my outs. Any Ace, King (for a straight), Jack or 6 (which) would give me a higher pair. It was not to be as an 8 was the river. Terrible shove by me in hindsight. Of course if he hadn't had a queen I would have won a pretty decent pot. Still not a really well thought out move.

Looking for to playing tonight in the Very Josie tournament.