Hoddy
User
Sophomore
| Posts: 55 |   |
|
Re:The Silver Comet Trail murder trial. - 2009/05/23 11:50
Thanks...I'd just like to say that the past two weeks have been the most heart and gut wrenching weeks I've ever been through...nothing can prepare a person for such an experience and I feel honored and privileged to have sat on a jury with those 11 jurors and 4 alternates.
The sentencing deliberations were really tough...as soon as we got into the deliberating room we took a silent vote...it was 10-2 in favor of death. The two who were against it let us know who they were...it was a man and a woman sitting by each other directly across the table from me. We started hashing things out and it seemed like after 2-1/2 hours we weren't getting anywhere, they were pretty staunch in their position...everyone seemed to be arguing the specifics of the case and it was pretty much chaos...I don't say much in situation like that, but I had a point I wanted to get across and asked if I could speak...everyone quieted down and I stood up and proceeded with the following...
I told them that we, as jurors were tasked with finding a just punishment for Michael Ledford. I then pointed out that he had spent around half his life incarcerated in various locations, he was no stranger to prison life, that he knew how to play the system to get what he wanted in prison...I then pointed out that if we gave him life he would have among other things...
Three meals a day
A prison store to shop in
TV
Exercise and physical fitness facilities
Access to a phone
A libarary
Computers and internet access
I reminded my fellow jurors that many people who have spent much of their adult life in prison actually prefer prison to life on the 'outside'
I then went on to remind my fellow jurors that Ledford's attorneys and Michael had asked us to give him life in prison.
I told them that by granting Ledford life we would be giving him exactly what he wanted and I asked each juror if they could sleep soundly at night knowing that they had given a man convicted of such a brutal and horrific murder the sentence that he wanted.
Everyone sat silent for a few moments and then went back to arguing. I noticed the two who were against death were talking quietly to each other and a minute or two later the woman looked at me across the table and in a very soft voice said 'we need to vote again'. I immediately told the foreman we needed to vote and both of the two holdouts voted for the death sentence. Later on after the verdict had been rendered they both came up to me and said that what I said had been what changed their mind.
|
