Jury duty, was I biased coming into the trial?
So, I don't know how the rest of the world works; but, I was assigned jury duty a year ago and never really thought about the experience until I got my second summon for jury duty for this month.
What happened was that there was a trial of an adult charged with the possession of a controlled substance found in his car. The controlled substance was amphetamine or methamphetamine (can't recall at this point, but doesn't matter since both chemicals are SCII).
So, before someone can become part of the jury some questions are asked by the prosecutor and defendant. In this case, the prosecutor was asking me some general questions. I brought up the fact that I might be biased due to having past issues with abusing prescription medication of the same category (amphetamine salts or more commonly known as 'Adderall'). Thus, my jury duty was cut short due to me showing some bias.
Was I correct in my assertion that I was biased or should I have kept my mouth shut and not say anything for/about/in regards to the matter?
What happened was that there was a trial of an adult charged with the possession of a controlled substance found in his car. The controlled substance was amphetamine or methamphetamine (can't recall at this point, but doesn't matter since both chemicals are SCII).
So, before someone can become part of the jury some questions are asked by the prosecutor and defendant. In this case, the prosecutor was asking me some general questions. I brought up the fact that I might be biased due to having past issues with abusing prescription medication of the same category (amphetamine salts or more commonly known as 'Adderall'). Thus, my jury duty was cut short due to me showing some bias.
Was I correct in my assertion that I was biased or should I have kept my mouth shut and not say anything for/about/in regards to the matter?
Comments (3)
You had nothing to lose by raising your doubts about yourself, and plenty by keeping them secret (i.e. constant self-questioning during the trial about whether you were biased or not). You handed the moral responsibility for the decision over to the prosecutor where it belonged.