The Juror Who Found Herself Guilty
January 23, 2024 11:03 AM Subscribe
She was pressured into convicting a man she believed was innocent —and was haunted by remorse. Three decades later, she did something about it.
Inside the courtroom, she hung her head as the jury announced its verdict. Ybarra couldn’t bear to look at Jaile as he learned he was being sent to prison for the rest of his life.
Then one day in 2017, she was cleaning out her desk drawers and came upon an old envelope. She opened it and, to her surprise, there was the juror’s certificate. Though it had been 27 years, her “award” was in pristine condition. She held it in her hands, studying those principled words that had unsettled her in the days after the trial: fair and conscientious, life, liberty. All of the old regrets rose in her again. But this time something shifted. For reasons she didn’t completely understand, she felt different.
This time, she decided to do something about it.
Inside the courtroom, she hung her head as the jury announced its verdict. Ybarra couldn’t bear to look at Jaile as he learned he was being sent to prison for the rest of his life.
Then one day in 2017, she was cleaning out her desk drawers and came upon an old envelope. She opened it and, to her surprise, there was the juror’s certificate. Though it had been 27 years, her “award” was in pristine condition. She held it in her hands, studying those principled words that had unsettled her in the days after the trial: fair and conscientious, life, liberty. All of the old regrets rose in her again. But this time something shifted. For reasons she didn’t completely understand, she felt different.
This time, she decided to do something about it.
Another beautiful piece from Texas Monthly. Always been so impressed.
posted by ndg at 11:47 AM on January 23 [18 favorites]
posted by ndg at 11:47 AM on January 23 [18 favorites]
THAT IS WHY polling the jury (not every lawyer asks that the jury be polled) is so important. "Was this, and is this now your verdict?" If you were bullied into a verdict, then is the time to speak up. I sadly think that many are so intimidated by court proceedings that they don't speak up though.
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:27 PM on January 23 [16 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 12:27 PM on January 23 [16 favorites]
Oh man, what a good guy we all missed out on knowing for so long.
posted by Dashy at 12:31 PM on January 23 [2 favorites]
posted by Dashy at 12:31 PM on January 23 [2 favorites]
I don't know how it never occurred to me that people who have been stuck in prison for most of their lives get fucked again since they can't get Social Security. Seemingly little details that don't just add insult to injury, but are another injury all their own.
posted by wierdo at 1:44 PM on January 23 [17 favorites]
posted by wierdo at 1:44 PM on January 23 [17 favorites]
There's a GoFundMe to support Carlos Jaile.
posted by rube goldberg at 1:55 PM on January 23 [10 favorites]
posted by rube goldberg at 1:55 PM on January 23 [10 favorites]
These travesties of justice will continue as long as there are no real consequences for those who commit them. A ruling of prosecutorial misconduct needs to end the prosecutor's legal career at the very least, as well as open them to criminal and civil liability
Prosecutors lie and commit misconduct all day every day. I just sat in court and heard a prosecutor lie this morning. Nothing can be done about it until judges are willing to sanction them when they do it.
posted by corb at 2:13 PM on January 23 [16 favorites]
Prosecutors lie and commit misconduct all day every day. I just sat in court and heard a prosecutor lie this morning. Nothing can be done about it until judges are willing to sanction them when they do it.
posted by corb at 2:13 PM on January 23 [16 favorites]
It doesn’t surprise me or make me think she was a bad person for succumbing to the pressure of the white majority; she was the last holdout of 3 Mexican American women, as well as slight, brown, and less than 5 feet tall, and likely led a life of having to go along to survive in Texas — plus her husband was a deputy and if she had held out I think she knew her husband would have suffered considerable blowback. She was courageous to resist as much as she did.
But what about the white people? Jaile's car was completely wrong, he wore a suit and tie instead of mechanic's overalls, and had several alibi witnesses to set against the victim's identification two years after the crime which occurred when she was eight years old!
He was clearly innocent. How could they possibly have found him guilty?
I don’t know, I sometimes wonder whether actual guilt even matters when you’re a minority, because in white eyes you’re all guilty of anything any member of your group does.
posted by jamjam at 2:28 PM on January 23 [13 favorites]
But what about the white people? Jaile's car was completely wrong, he wore a suit and tie instead of mechanic's overalls, and had several alibi witnesses to set against the victim's identification two years after the crime which occurred when she was eight years old!
He was clearly innocent. How could they possibly have found him guilty?
I don’t know, I sometimes wonder whether actual guilt even matters when you’re a minority, because in white eyes you’re all guilty of anything any member of your group does.
posted by jamjam at 2:28 PM on January 23 [13 favorites]
many things bother me, i'm a very botherable person, but i am particularly bothered when people with that lock-em-up attitude don't acknowledge that locking up the first person you see is not a method of being "tough on crime" but instead a method of being extremely lax on crime
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:51 PM on January 23 [54 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:51 PM on January 23 [54 favorites]
like the jurors who pressed to convict are members in good standing of the help-child-molesters-molest-children club.
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:52 PM on January 23 [12 favorites]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:52 PM on January 23 [12 favorites]
Something I have never really thought about before, but why are jurors sent out to deliberate together - to pressure and persuade each other - instead of being given time to study the evidence on their own and draw their own conclusions and then vote secretly? It never really came up as an issue, even in law school.
posted by jacquilynne at 3:01 PM on January 23 [18 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 3:01 PM on January 23 [18 favorites]
corb: “Nothing can be done about it until judges are willing to sanction them when they do it.”They all know the system as constituted is a crime against humanity. The legislators. The judges. The prosecutors. The cops. The jailers. All of them. So I wouldn't hold my breath.
posted by ob1quixote at 3:35 PM on January 23 [10 favorites]
Alexander Pope wrote, “Wretches hang that jury-men may dine.”
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:39 PM on January 23 [9 favorites]
posted by ricochet biscuit at 5:39 PM on January 23 [9 favorites]
many things bother me, i'm a very botherable person, but i am particularly bothered when people with that lock-em-up attitude don't acknowledge that locking up the first person you see is not a method of being "tough on crime" but instead a method of being extremely lax on crime
Might make a cynical person wonder whether the law per se is really the social norm they’re trying to enforce.
posted by eirias at 4:34 AM on January 24 [8 favorites]
Might make a cynical person wonder whether the law per se is really the social norm they’re trying to enforce.
posted by eirias at 4:34 AM on January 24 [8 favorites]
but instead a method of being extremely lax on crime
So true. The actual rapist is out there and free and has never suffered any consequences for their horrific crime.
Infuriating.
posted by teece303 at 9:17 AM on January 24 [2 favorites]
So true. The actual rapist is out there and free and has never suffered any consequences for their horrific crime.
Infuriating.
posted by teece303 at 9:17 AM on January 24 [2 favorites]
I don’t know, I sometimes wonder whether actual guilt even matters when you’re a minority, because in white eyes you’re all guilty of anything any member of your group does.
it does not.
it's why anyone who's brownish and asiatic is expected to always disavow hamas/isis/al qaida/iran/islam/etc before being granted even a small audience by white folk; why anyone who's brown and latine always has to disavow cartels/undocumented immigrants/etc; and so on and so on.
to the majority (white, cis, het) that wields (patriarchal, supremacist) power, if you do not align within that system as one of the good ones or one of the (acceptable) white ones, you are already marked for some kind of guilt. whatever wrath that comes in is immaterial to whether or not you, as a marginalized person, have done anything. indeed, often times you will have done nothing at all.
posted by i used to be someone else at 9:35 AM on January 24 [5 favorites]
it does not.
it's why anyone who's brownish and asiatic is expected to always disavow hamas/isis/al qaida/iran/islam/etc before being granted even a small audience by white folk; why anyone who's brown and latine always has to disavow cartels/undocumented immigrants/etc; and so on and so on.
to the majority (white, cis, het) that wields (patriarchal, supremacist) power, if you do not align within that system as one of the good ones or one of the (acceptable) white ones, you are already marked for some kind of guilt. whatever wrath that comes in is immaterial to whether or not you, as a marginalized person, have done anything. indeed, often times you will have done nothing at all.
posted by i used to be someone else at 9:35 AM on January 24 [5 favorites]
The time I hung a jury by refusing to vote guilty, the rest of the jury didn’t think it was important that the witness testifying against the defendant had lied twice under oath. And one of those lies was called out by the police officer who also testified.
Yes, the defendant was a Black man.
posted by MexicanYenta at 1:19 PM on January 24 [8 favorites]
Yes, the defendant was a Black man.
posted by MexicanYenta at 1:19 PM on January 24 [8 favorites]
- like, thank you for your service! because that is so fuckin' cool. plus 10,000 points to you. at least 10,000 points
- i really hope i get called up for jury duty at some point, because i am good at making moderate reasonable mouth noises when it means there's a small but non-negligible chance that i get put on a case where i can keep someone's life from getting wrecked
> Might make a cynical person wonder whether the law per se is really the social norm they’re trying to enforce.
what we think of as "law" is actually a subset of crime
is one of the many things that i will carefully avoid saying if i'm called up for jury duty
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:28 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
what we think of as "law" is actually a subset of crime
is one of the many things that i will carefully avoid saying if i'm called up for jury duty
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 2:28 PM on January 24 [4 favorites]
Also don’t mention that you are aware of jury nullification but also be aware of jury nullification. Because honestly in this country jailing people is just subjecting them to torture for X number of years.
posted by corb at 3:47 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
posted by corb at 3:47 PM on January 24 [3 favorites]
oh yeah you have no idea how much i want to nullify all sorts of things, i live to nullify, and it would be a blast to get to do it (while also diligently refusing to let the words "nullify" and "nullification" pass through my lips)
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 3:55 PM on January 24 [1 favorite]
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 3:55 PM on January 24 [1 favorite]
Rebecca Watson's latest is quite a look into jury selection, including her own experience where she expressed her willingness to nullify while trying her hardest to avoid using the word.
posted by tigrrrlily at 6:50 PM on January 24 [2 favorites]
posted by tigrrrlily at 6:50 PM on January 24 [2 favorites]
“Law & Order's War on Your Rights” [1:08:18]—Skip Intro, 11 January 2024
posted by ob1quixote at 3:07 PM on January 27
posted by ob1quixote at 3:07 PM on January 27
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posted by NoxAeternum at 11:32 AM on January 23 [35 favorites]