quixoteland t1_j83vgls wrote on February 11, 2023 at 1:19 PM

Reply to comment by APettyJ in Garage Fishtown was deciding what to do with their Matisse Thybulle mural. And then he tagged it. by APettyJ

You can only do the best you can when presented with the evidence that's actually allowed to be presented to you. The woman's attorney (or prosecutor) maybe should have brought up the fact that she was a lesbian, you finding out about it after the fact really doesn't have much of a bearing on it.

Or maybe the lawyer knew, but didn't feel they had an adequate way of presenting it to the jury or didn't think it was important. The defense and prosecution are in charge of everything that you're presented as jurors, anything else is strictly not in your purview.

Thinking that somehow you have to make up for a decision you made to the best of your ability when presented with the facts provided is nothing to be ashamed of, or more to the point, something you think you have to "make up" for.

APettyJ OP t1_j8446rl wrote on February 11, 2023 at 2:34 PM

Thank you for this.

I'm reminded of the times I've helped my ex-wife's daughter with reading homework, and we've often talked about "context clues". The lesbian thing, sure, might not have been right out there to see, but being able to put oneself in someone else's shoes could have led us to have more discussion based on the whole time passed angle and likelihood she was doing this to someone she barely knew and didn't hate beforehand. While I can't remember now what the points were, there were a couple of things that gave me and a couple others pause and we initially did not vote to acquit. Maybe we could have had more discussions, and maybe thought of some other reasons a woman would get on the stand and say what she said. One thing that stuck with me was it was only three males who did not vote to acquit, whereas our jury had more females than males. However, just about all of the women jurors were minorities, and so the defense attorney, who was also female, was really effective with the "racial regret" defense.

I don't feel guilty, but have made a promise to be more diligent if and when there is a next time, and pay attention to the "context clues", especially trying to be more empathetic.