Mr. M's Blog: Probable Cause and Guilty? Most jurors have never been arrested.

Mr. Misdemeanor Blog by Royce Brent Bishop, Esq. (305) 290-4263 royce@mrmisdemeanor.com

Mr. Misdemeanor is dedicated to the defense of felonies, misdemeanors, speeding tickets, traffic tickets, domestic violence, civil infractions, foreclosure defense, and other offenses relating to county, municipal, or local ordinances.

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Probable Cause and Guilty? Most jurors have never been arrested.

I really thought this last case may be going to trial. As I was thinking of jury selection, it occured to me that most jurors have never been arrested. Jurors bring their own personal experiences to court and they think, "Well, I have never been arrested, so the defendant must have done something wrong." The problem is that some jurors forget or cannot accept that probable cause is very low threshold compared to proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

For example, one time a friend and their family went out of town and on vacation. On their vacation someone broke into their rental car and stole everything--I mean everything: legal documents, keys to rental properties they owned, passports, birth certifcates,copies of health, life, and property insurance, bank safety deposit box keys-bascially all the stuff you would want to salvage from your home if their was a fire, with the exeption of family photos, keepsakes, and sentimental stuff.

I was summoned on the phone to climb into a secretly unlocked window, to get something very important for my friend's family. Can you imagine the police seeing me climbing in the window or the neighbors calling the police? That was definitely probable cause for me to be arrested for breaking and entering or burglary, but I was not guilty of anything.