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Feb. 3, 2026 - Adventures in HellwQrld
24:27
Mike the Juror

Mike got jury duty and actually had to hear a case. There isn't a lot of evidence but what we did have seems pretty bad, will Mike convict granny of a OUI? Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/hellwqrld. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Sneaky Info and Closing Arguments 00:14:57
Hello, everyone.
Mike Reigns here.
Elobo Solo.
Today is going to be a kind of slice of life pod.
I'm definitely going to get into the whole Epstein QAnon stuff either with the group or I'm going to start doing solo stuff on that as well, because it's very frustrating listening to people going, oh, we figured out what QAnon was all about.
It wasn't a cover for when the Epstein stuff broke out and blah, blah, blah.
And all the Pizzagate people are pizzagating and blah, blah, blah.
So it's aggravating.
But basically, we've been having some scheduling issues.
We're trying to smooth that over.
The Super Bowl is going to jam things up because everyone's free on Sundays, except for me, the sports ball lover.
So after the Super Bowl, we're probably going to be back to normal.
Everything's going to be fine.
But for now, we're just going to try to get by as best we can.
And so that's me right now doing a pod.
And what's this pod about?
I had jury duty.
And not only did I have jury duty, I was on the jury.
And that was an experience.
It was very interesting.
And I have some thoughts about that and what happened.
And I want to talk about the case because it was really interesting.
And so, I mean, if this isn't your cup of tea, then I'll see you next episode.
Not a problem.
But if you do want to hear about this, and I hope I make this somewhat interesting, here we go.
So I go to this courtroom and I get a really low number, number 11.
Oh, if only it was number 17, but no, number 11.
And it's pretty obvious that they're just accepting people because the first like five people go up and only one of them gets kicked out.
So you got to apparently say some really terrible things to these lawyers to not get on the jury.
And I go up and I try to explain that I really don't like drunks and drug addicts, but apparently not enough to dissuade the defense attorney because this is a DUI or an OUI case.
And they put me on the jury and there I am.
And this is apparently a small enough case that there's only a six-person jury.
So the six of us, us lucky six, now get to hear this case.
And it's about a woman who did some stuff that was weird.
And she got grabbed by the cops.
And now they're going to try to convict her of driving under the influence.
And the prosecuting attorney says she did three drugs and then got in this car and did some and drove around and then got pulled over.
And that was that.
And the defense attorney says those drugs were prescription.
And yeah, she was probably using them, but the cops didn't do everything they were supposed to do.
And they didn't do their jobs.
So as a result, we need to let her go.
And so that was the opening arguments.
And this case was told to us at the start.
Who was going to be two police were going to testify?
And that was it.
And let me tell you, that was it.
And when we get to the deliberations, that's going to obviously bear in on what happened.
So cop number one comes in and he sucks.
This is basically the easiest way to describe this.
Everyone on the jury did not care for this guy.
And the reason why we didn't care for this guy was because he froze up on the stand.
He was very, if this was not his first time in front of a jury, he needs to get coached up on how to handle this because him testifying at a trial, rough, to say the least.
They tried to sneak in some information.
The defense attorney objected.
The gist of what he said was the woman, an older lady, she was at a red light.
She got out of her car.
She walked away from her car.
She then turned around and walked back into her car and sat down.
And he drove over to her and asked her what she was doing.
And she said, quote, I was following, I was feeling the music.
And then he got another cop.
And that other cop was helping with traffic.
And then they moved her away from the car.
They did the roadside, the field sobriety tests that she was not good at physically.
And then after that, I guess they grabbed her.
They really never said exactly how it went down after the field sobriety tests, but that was implied.
But after his statement about what happened, there was a series of events where the prosecutor would ask him a question and he would freeze up.
And then he and the prosecutor had to go through what I assume is this legalistic ritual.
I don't know if the defense attorney objected at some point and made them perform the ritual.
I don't remember that.
But the gist of it was, is that the prosecutor would ask him a question.
The cop would freeze up and say something to the effect of, I don't remember.
I can't recall.
I'm not really sure.
And then the prosecutor would ask him, would ask him, is your memory like completely shot?
Have you searched every section of your brain for the answer to this question and you just can't quite come up with it?
So we need to, like, I need to help you.
And the cop would then say yes.
And then the prosecutor would say, would show you, would showing you your notes refresh your memory?
And then the cop would say yes.
And then the prosecutor would say, Judge, may I approach?
And the prosecutor would say, and the judge would say yes.
And then the prosecutor would give him the notes and then he would read from his notes and then they would continue the questioning.
And then they would get to another section of the questioning and the cop would freeze up again.
And we would have to go through that ritual again.
And then after the ritual was over and he read from his notes, he would go back to some more questioning.
And then he would freeze up again.
And by the fourth time it happened, you could see the prosecutor like bristle.
Like he was actually just like, what the fuck, dude?
Like, seriously, bro.
Did you, did you not brush up on any of your information before the trial?
Were you not prepared for this?
This was literally your morning cleared out.
Like, you're going to be in court.
You're going to have to testify about this DUI case or OUI case.
And oh my God, it was just, it was just like, it was pulling teeth.
It was so bad.
And then after that, the defense attorney basically just did some sort of kind of cleanup, which was just like, you've never seen this woman before.
How do you know that her eyes were droopy?
How do you know her speech was slurred?
Blah, blah, blah.
Just you've never met her.
You know what her, you don't know what her cadence sounds like.
You don't know what her eyes look like, et cetera, et cetera.
And basically, just saying, like, you made the determination that she was impaired, but you had no proof of that.
And the cop was basically like, hey, I thought she was.
Blah, blah, blah.
And that was the end of COP 1's testimony.
And we were supposed to have a five-minute break after COP 1, and it turned into like a 25-minute break.
And we were kind of all hoping that the prosecution was really upset about that and they'd somehow cut a deal with the defense that we were over with this.
But sadly, that was not to be.
And we then got to cop two.
And cop two said that, yeah, when we got there, there was some like Adderall on her nose.
She had very obviously snorted the Adderall.
And he is a, he's basically a specialized officer that knows a drug identification officer, I believe, was the terminology used.
But basically, he was the guy in the precinct who was the guy that would like do the 12-step program to delineate that you were, in fact, intoxicated on narcotics.
It's not like a DUI where you just blow into the breathalyzer, boop, you pop a number, we got you, done.
Like a narcotics-based OUI offense requires this sort of special touch, and that this guy for his department is the guy that does that.
And then on cross, the defense attorney basically said, Look, why didn't you do the 12-step part with her?
And he said, Well, that was because I was in the field with her and I was now already biased against her.
I thought she was obviously impaired.
And the defense attorney said, Well, then couldn't you have called someone in from a different department?
And he's like, I guess I could have, but blah, blah, blah.
And she just looked at him incredulously.
He's like, Why didn't you do your fucking job?
And he was just basically looked at her and said, Lady, this woman was very obviously impaired.
This, we didn't have to do all these steps when this woman 100% was on Adderall.
She had done stuff.
She had been, um, she had she'd done this stuff and that she was on these three different drugs.
And it was Adderall and just cinemamine.
Oh, God, I can't even remember the name of it.
I'm trying to say it, but Gabba Penton, that was it.
Gabba Penton was the one I remember.
There was a third, there was a third one that was also a depressant whose name eludes me.
First person to DM me or reply to this pod.
And guess the drug that refreshes my memory wins the prize of nothing.
But yeah, so that was the situation.
So then we did the closing arguments, the closing arguments basically were the prosecutor saying, she did it.
This is very obvious.
Please convict her.
And the defense attorney saying they didn't do their jobs.
Do not do their jobs for them.
Do not convict her.
And for me, it was, she was guilty because she obviously had started Adderall.
She got out of the car, walked around, got back in the car, was the officer pulled her over or stopped her, asked her what was going on.
She said she was following the music, which is not something you say when you're in your right mind.
And the judge told us that the three criterion for conviction here were that she was operating the vehicle.
Very obviously she was.
That she was on a public roadway, which she was.
And third, that she was impaired, which I thought the Adderall Adderall on her nose and the walking around and the following the music all indicated impairment.
And the judge also made it very clear to us that dangerous driving is not part of the equation when it comes to a conviction, that impairment is all that is needed.
So that we don't have to know about any dangerous driving.
So that was that.
Very funnily, while we were on the break, the court officer that like herds us to and from the jury, from the courtroom to the deliberation room and the jury restroom, he had mentioned to us that like that we were going to have like one more cop and then the case would the closing arguments and we'd get the case and we should be, it should be done by like four or so.
And the way he said it to me, just the way it hit my ears was just, yeah, this is a slim dog.
You don't have to worry about it.
You guys are going to be in that deliberation room for like, I don't know, five, ten minutes.
Boom.
We got this, bro.
But we, we, so we go into, we go into the deliberation room and with our one piece of evidence, one.
Our piece of evidence is a printout of a Google map of the intersection where the lady was stopped.
That was our, that was our, that was our, that was the whole of our physical evidence for this case.
And we pulled our and uh we had our poll.
Um I really enjoyed the deliberations.
Uh it was kind of like friendly but formal.
None of us gave our names.
We were all just six strangers hanging out in a room and we were just like going through it, but none of us felt the need to like share or kind of like bond.
No one was like, hey, I'm Joe.
None of that.
It was just very much, hey, we're all here.
We're all we're all doing a thing.
And it was also very, very weird, like during the breaks in the trial.
We would just be on our phones or just ignoring each other because we couldn't talk about the case.
We had to like be quiet the whole time.
It was very, very odd.
So we got into the deliberation room and we start talking and spitballing and we like do a poll.
And the first poll is three not guilty, three guilty.
And I'm probably like the strongest on Team Guilty at that point.
And I really made the argument that by the letter of the law, she's guilty by the spirit of the law.
Maybe we like don't do this.
Because in my mind, also, this is a victimless crime.
The cops grabbed her.
No property was damaged.
No people were hurt.
Nothing really happened.
So it was just, it was just a thing.
It was just a thing that was really like annoying because the people in the room were very much upset at the fact that the cops didn't do the 12-point drug check.
Fighting for Unanimity 00:08:26
There was no blood drawn.
There was no urine taken.
We had no evidence.
There was no body cameras.
There were no photos.
There was no video.
It was just literally two cops told us what happened and that was supposed to be good enough.
And again, for those three jurors that were on the not guilty side of things, they weren't really swayed.
And so then one of the not guilties and one of the guilties had a conversation.
And when they were done, they both switched.
They both, one guy was like, you know, now I'm leaning guilty.
The other guy was like, man, you did it to me too.
I'm leaning guilty now.
So we were in this spot and we had like.
We wanted more information is what we wanted.
And so the information we wanted, there was a third question, which I'm blanking on.
I'm a bad juror.
I forgot the third drug and I forgot our third question.
But our questions were, were the prescription drugs that were found, were they in her name or not?
And when was the traffic stop?
Was it like in the middle of the day?
Was it in the evening?
We wanted a better understanding of the traffic stop.
Then we got into the courtroom and the judge told us that they cannot answer any of our questions.
He was just like, look, what you got is what you got.
And that's it.
So get back in there and continue deliberating.
And what was really like, this just blew my mind because they just grabbed the six of us and threw us in the jury box and that was it.
And it felt like if they wanted us to be better about this, then like they should have given us like notepads to like write stuff down with and remember it or let us put our phones on a record or something.
Just have a way to have a transcript of something other than just, hey, you're shoddy, sleep-deprived recollections of what was just said over the last few hours.
Make it work.
That was really annoying.
And I could feel the other guilty voters starting to weaken as we were continuing to talk it out.
We were very frustrated after they didn't answer our questions.
We were just like, man, fuck, what are we supposed to do?
We were just aggravated.
And it just got us to a point where like we're kicking it around and we're starting to like wonder exactly like, and you can just feel this like sort of tension about like, do we really reward the police for their bad job?
And again, to me, I'm still holding out here a bit, but like, I'm not, I'm not hell-bent on sending grandma up the river here.
I, I'm not, no, we gotta convict her.
This is, I mean, she absolutely was impaired and she absolutely was driving the vehicle on a public road and blah, blah, blah.
All the criterion are met.
Guilty, guilty, guilty.
I'm not quite there.
I'm not, I'm not banging the table.
And I can feel the room shifting.
And then one of the other jurors says, guys, it's 4:15.
If we don't like, if we don't get this done by 4, we got 15 minutes.
If we don't have this done by 4.30, they're going to make us come back tomorrow morning to continue this process.
And that, that was a real cracking of the whip.
That got everybody moving.
We were like, oh, shit, we need to speed this up.
We need to get this done.
We got to vote.
We got to get the unanimity here.
And it was at that point that Team Not Guilty really started getting steam.
And I just told them, I'm like, hey, I mean, In my heart of hearts, I really felt like this was jury nullification.
I really felt that there was enough evidence to convict this woman, but we were just like, no, we won't.
You cops did a bad job and we are not going to reward you.
And we're letting her walk as is our God-given right to do so.
The glories of the American Constitution allow a jury to just say no.
And there were a couple of people who were like, hey, hey, hey, that's a bit strong.
We have honest reasons for why we're on the not guilty side of things.
We're not just spitting in the eye of this indictment.
And I'm just like, hey, whatever gets you through in the night, it's fine with me.
I'm not going to be the one holdout that's fighting to get a conviction here because I'm not going to fight harder than the cops did.
The winning line, again, I mentioned it, but the winning line from the defense attorney was she said, they want you to do their jobs for them.
Don't.
Like, don't convict her just to make up for the mistakes they made.
And at the end of the day, that's kind of how it went down.
And we voted not guilty.
We went in.
We said not guilty.
Judge congratulated us, said we did a bang up job.
I have no idea if he meant that or not, but that's what he said.
And then that was it.
And we were done.
The one last fun thing that happened was we got to be like kings for the day in there because it was very funny.
Stuff would happen.
And then the court officer would send us into the room and someone would say, all rise for the jury.
And everyone in the courtroom would have to stand up.
And then we would go into the jury box and they could all sit down.
And we did that on the breaks.
We did that when we had the questions, all that stuff.
So everyone had to stand up for the six of us.
We were the cool people for the moment.
And yeah, so we let Granny walk.
And it was really funny.
Someone mentioned, like, we mentioned because we were really just fighting on this.
That like, if we voted to convict her, we wanted to make a note, like, please don't send her to jail.
This is like a stupid, victimless crime.
And like, like go easy on her, basically was our mindset.
And we also wanted to put down if we voted not guilty to be like, hey, look, lady, we know you screwed up.
And we really hope that this brush with the law and severe consequences gets you to straighten up and fly right and start doing better and all that kind of stuff.
So like we, it was, it was a, it was a thing.
It was a struggle.
It was interesting.
I, I, my conscience is clear about voting not guilty.
But at the same time, if we had had, uh, if the, if the other jurors, if the other jurors had been more of a mindset to convict her, I would have been okay with that too.
So that was, that was my day.
That was my day in court.
That was Mike Reen's juror handling the affairs of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
I forget exactly how it came up, but we were all talking about, we were like, oh man, I can't believe we made it to the jury.
Like this sucks, like all that kind of stuff.
And I had, I mentioned that like, I could, I could have just gone hog in the when they talked to us because the flag in the courtroom had the gold fringe on it.
And I could have, like, could have just been, I can't, I can't be a jury under maritime law or something like that.
And just, they would have got rid of me real quick after I pulled that, but I couldn't do it.
I couldn't go full queue in order to get out of jury duty.
So I freed a dangerous, reckless driver.
And yeah, that was how it all shook out.
Freed A Dangerous Driver 00:00:33
So I hope you enjoyed this.
Hope this was at least interesting and that if you ever do get stuck on a jury, you'll have an experience kind of like mine.
So thanks for listening.
Reviews, bonuses, all that kind of good stuff.
Go to patreon.com slash poker politics.
Hook me up.
Throw some shuckles my way.
Give me some money.
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Thanks to Frosty and DJ Minimal Effort for the bumps and the music.
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