Reminds Me Of A Jury Pool I Was On

Almost half of jury pool couldn't impose death sentence in Easton case
By Rudy Miller | For lehighvalleylive.com

"Almost half of the jurors in Jeffrey Knoble's pool Monday said their beliefs would prevent them from imposing a death sentence."

My CommentsSeveral years ago I was called to jury duty. It involved a really big hotshot malpractice ambulance chasing law firm out of Philadelphia who does a lot of multimillion settlement cases here in Lehigh County. This was the second time I encountered this ambulance chasing lawyer which I first served jury duty on a few years before This particular case involved some kid who died with this same lawyer seeking once again a super large payout.

Without going into all the intimate details-- I was summed before the judge, a defense lawyer and this jerk as to why I had issues serving. Both he and more importantly the judge made me feel like I was a criminal on trial because of my views. At stake was the future earnings this child who died could have earned over his lifetime. The judge was worse then the attorney grilling me as to why I couldn't accept some damn chart the judge presented me stating the money this kid could have been expected to earn had he lived.

I tried sincerely to explain the experience I had with my own kid who turned out nothing like I expected. Instead the two of them intimidated me every way possible as if I were a liar and the one on trial. They badgered me for over twenty minutes. And you wonder why people don't want to serve jury duty !

The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth. Not everyone's looking to get out of jury duty. Some of us have very real positions we believe in. I was treated like dirt. Hence my feelings towards the little respect I have for the justice system. I can only imagine what's it's like for those charged since they have so little respect for those of us forced to serve. People like myself who never seen the inside of a courtroom until being summoned. We don't deserve to be treated this way. My hope is jurors in this case received greater respect then I received.

My further hope is these two guys were so pissed off I've been added to some list never to be called again. Both of them can stick it.