Patricia Sylvester may have learned the ultimate lesson of “never ask a question in trial that you do not know the answer to.” Sylvester, 49, was overjoyed when a jury came back with a “not guilty” to vehicular assault in Island County Superior Court in Washington. While she cried with joy, Judge Alan Hancock polled the jury only to have one woman say that she didn’t agree with the “not guilty” verdict. He sent the jury back to voted again. By the time they had returned, they had convicted Sylvester.
I have serious reservations about this process since this “second bite at the apple” could have been influenced by the reaction in the courtroom and the defendant’s reaction. Sylvester was charged after an accident in 2008 that left a man with a collapsed lung and three fractured ribs. She was driving a 1996 Acura when she braked to avoid a car and lost control of her car. He hit a Subaru driven by Michael Nichols.
The jury still found her not guilty of the offense of committing vehicular assault while intoxicated.
There are some reports indicating that the holdout juror was consistent in her voting and that the jury misunderstood a jury instruction regarding the necessity of a unanimous decision. I am not sure how “unanimous” is ambiguous but they believed that every vote was not needed for a not guilty verdict.
In their defense, they had sent questions about the unanimous verdict requirement, but obviously remained confused.
Jurors said that, when the judge sent them back, they looked more seriously at the evidence and found guilty.
It is hardly comforting that they took the time to look more seriously at the evidence after the verdict was announced. The defendant’s reaction and that of the courtroom could have influenced their response. It is true that a judge will often tell a divided jury to continue their deliberations. However, this is a materially different matter when the jury has been called to publicly identify their votes in open court. It seems to me that the earlier divided vote was an accurate tally and, if the court was not going to accept the not guilty verdict (which is understandable), a mistrial would be in order.
This case shows why lawyers need to ask for a polling of the jury if a court does not do so automatically — when you are on the losing side. However, in this case, Sylvester’s attorney reportedly asked for the polling. I am not sure why you would want to poll a not guilty jury. The attorney may have suspected a division and wanted to put the matter to rest for appeal. Yet, it was a gamble for the same reason that cost the client dearly.
It is not malpractice to do so. Such matters are treated as matters of discretionary tactics.
For the full story, click here.
BobEsq:
we definitely need to learn what is good and not good. How else did humans survive through all the generations? We would have died long ago from eating poisonous plants.
That which is good promotes life, how do we know what promotes life without having lived or been taught the good?
Byron: “I take it you aren’t into the latest toga fob or the most recent Gladiatorial garment, or how about that new sandal I saw Gracchus wearing the other day? My wife wants a new tile floor with Neptune and some fish. It is going to cost me plenty.”
The tile floor remark did in fact make me laugh out loud.
GWMom:
yes I do, one male and one female. Why do you ask?
BobEsq:
I take it you aren’t into the latest toga fob or the most recent Gladiatorial garment, or how about that new sandal I saw Gracchus wearing the other day? My wife wants a new tile floor with Neptune and some fish. It is going to cost me plenty.
Elaine:
What about children that do like to read?
byron writes: that is the point, your experience in 2009 is not much different from a person of your station in life from 350 BC.
boy do you have that wrong.
my experience in 2009 is vastly different from my experience in 1959. and it isn’t about station in life. its about culture and expectations and the fact that in this country people are expected to alter their station in life via education and learning how to work the system and that is one thing that is being taught in public school. my experience as a publicly educated woman is not just different from my kid’s experience. it’s incomparable in most ways and again, it isn’t only about curriculum. in 1959 girls were expected to grow up seeking marriage and rearing children as their ultimate goal. not so in 2009.
btw, do you have kids?
Byron: “that is the point, your experience in 2009 is not much different from a person of your station in life from 350 BC.”
Excepting that man/boy love thing that Plato discussed in the Symposium; eh hem…right?
“No cars and phones but the general wants, needs and desires haven’t changed much.”
So you don’t believe the last seventy years of technological advances have left the masses more driven to ‘death by distraction?’
A quote you should keep in mind every time they come out with a new iphone, etc., or when you see newsmen and congressmen polluting the minds of the masses with the mental flotsam machine known as twitter:
Thoreau: “We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.”
“Reinventing the wheel in each successive generation is time spent unnecessarily that could have been used toward a more productive end.”
“And what is good, Phædrus, And what is not good… Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?”
Byron–
Having known and taught kids who were reluctant readers–I can tell you how exciting it is to see children who once disliked reading getting hooked on books because of new authors or genres I introduced them to. Many of those books weren’t classics.
Maybe if we didn’t try to force only “classics” on our students and children and allowed them to select some of the books they read–more kids would find reading pleasurable. Once they began reading and enjoying it more, they might very well become more proficient readers who would be better able to appreciate the classics.
I’m in favor of putting the horse before the cart.
GWMom:
that is the point, your experience in 2009 is not much different from a person of your station in life from 350 BC. No cars and phones but the general wants, needs and desires haven’t changed much. Reinventing the wheel in each successive generation is time spent unnecessarily that could have been used toward a more productive end.
Gyges:
I don’t think reading contemporary authors is bad, I just think you ought to read old dead authors first. The contemporary authors probably did and that is why, along with life experience, they have something to say. Of course this is all just BTOTW (Byron’s Theory of the World)
buddha writes: The “powers that be” don’t want you or anyone else to be capable of independent thought.
nice to see you again doll.
byron writes:
They will be able to think. Maybe even think outside the box. Develop new ideas, revise old worn out methodologies, that type of thing. The presidents of major corporations are there for a reason and that reason is the ability to reason.
Obviously you need to study what you enjoy but a classical education in elementary and high schools would go along way in preparing children for success.
thinking critically or creatively does not come from curricula but from being given permission to do so and then encouragement. doesn’t matter what the subject matter is. thinking is what curricula of all sorts should inspire.
classics are but one way to inspire… but in all my years of schooling and there were lots of them, I never was as inspired by the ancients as I was by those whose lives seemed like mine, or what I wanted mine to be.
lotta writes: Declining intelligence.
Frank Zappa, of all people, wrote about this in the liner notes of one of his early albums, maybe 1966? 67?
anyway his point was that it was in the best interests of government to havea stupid population who did not rely on their own wit and industry to learn, get educated to many points of view and act accordingly. he was anti-drug, to some surprise, unless you followed his rants, and thought that drugs and alcohol made for a plastic population that would be dulled into believing what the government wanted them/us to believe and we would be dulled into submission.
too bad he died before blogging.
too bad he died so soon.
Byron,
No love for “Atlas Shrugged,” “To Kill a Mocking Bird,” most of Heinlein’s and Vidal’s careers, some of Borges’s, and Garcia Marquez? I’d wager your concept of Archetypes owes quite a bit to “The Power of Myth” (directly or indirectly) which was published in the late 80s.
Elaine/Jill/Mike:
I will be happy to take $500,000 per year to run a bank into the ground. That would be win win all around. They pay less for salary, they will fire me quicker because they wont be envious and in awe of me because of my $20,000,000 million salary and I will do little harm because they wont let me do too much damage. And there is the upside, I might actually turn a profit and that would be a real deal at only $500,000.
Bryon,
Dean Bakere says we ought to take “the talent” up on their threats to go elsewhere if their bonus gets capped! He says it would save us tons of money and we could get some competent people in the banks at last! 🙂
Byron–
You wrote: “Do you blame the person? Or do you blame the dumb-ass that hired them?”
***************
I blame the greedy CEO–and the dumb-ass that hired him/her.
$20,000,000? That would be considered a paltry sum by certain corporate officers. It wouldn’t even put a CEO anywhere near the top ten.
Check this out:
Aug. 14 (Bloomberg) — Following is a table listing the Top 10 highest paid chief executive officers of 2008, according to The Corporate Library. Seven out of the top 10 CEOs work in the energy industry.
==========================================================================
Total Realized
CEO Name Company Name Compensation Industry
==========================================================================
Stephen A. Blackstone
Schwarzman Group L.P. $702,440,573 Financial Services
————————————————————————–
Lawrence J. Oracle
Ellison Corporation $556,976,600 Computer Software
————————————————————————–
Ray R. Occidental Petroleum
Irani Corporation $222,639,705 Petroleum & Coal Extraction
————————————————————————–
John B. Hess Hess Corp. $159,566,940 Petroleum Products
==========================================================================
Total Realized
CEO Name Company Name Compensation Industry
==========================================================================
Michael D. Ultra Petroleum
Watford Corp. $116,929,392 Petroleum & Coal Extraction
————————————————————————–
Aubrey K. Chesapeake Energy
McClendon Corporation $114,286,867 Petroleum & Coal Extraction
————————————————————————–
Bob R. XTO Energy
Simpson Inc. $103,485,972 Petroleum & Coal Extraction
————————————————————————–
Mark G. EOG Resources,
Papa Inc. $90,471,784 Petroleum & Coal Extraction
————————————————————————–
Eugene M. Nabors Industries
Isenberg Ltd. $79,333,079 Petroleum & Coal Services
————————————————————————–
Michael S. Abercrombie &
Jeffries Fitch Co. $71,795,744 Retail Apparel
Not bad remuneration for a year’s work!
Byron,
That’s why I like you. I’m a Capra sucker also and all his movies tear me up. Just a point about high salaried pro athletes and their pay, which mostly doesn’t compare to corporate pay. An average baseball player is probably in the top .0001% of all people who play baseball in skill level. A top CEO is in the top 10% of all people who could run a business. Quite a disparity and yet unless you’re ARod or Pujols you don’t get paid anywhere near your value. CEO’s are generally highly overpaid given their actual level of skill.
Mike Spindell:
Just call me Clarence, Christmas is just around the corner and once again George is going to need to be bailed out of a jam caused by that greedy prick Mr. Potter.
Not to worry, I have you and Buddha to give me a cogent other side of the coin take on markets.
Yes I do know how badly people are treated in India and China and that probably out of the 1-1.5 billion people in each country only 200-300 million are able to take advantage of the growing prosperity. You know me, I wish everyone could enjoy the fruits of the free market. Call it egalitarian capitalism.
Hope springs eternal in the heart of every humanitarian capitalist (not an oxymoron in my view).
Elaine:
it actually does make me sick that someone makes 20 million a year and the secretary with 2 small children is having a hard time paying the rent or buying health care insurance. Especially if they are running their company into the ground.
Do you blame the person? Or do you blame the dumb-ass that hired them? It is similar to professional sports, are those athletes really worth that amount of money? I don’t know, can anyone be a major league athletes? Probably not due to physical limitations.
Can anyone be a successful corporate CEO probably not due to the same physical limitations. I think Mike Spindell is partially right (above) about being politically savvy but it takes more to run a company or any enterprise well for that matter.
Mike Spindell–
On your comments made at 12:40 pm: Well said.